Arbitrary abbreviations in phobos considered ridiculous

[Nick Sabalausky]

"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx> wrote in message 
news:mailman.447.1331426602.4860.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 05:45:33PM -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Everyone" *isn't* using it (even for a non-literal usage of
>> "everyone").  And I have it turned off because the web is not *not
>> only* "unpleasant" with it *on*, but, for me, borderline unusable.
>
> I used to do that. :-)
>
> These days, I just can't be bothered what someone does or doesn't do
> with JS on their site.  Opera lets me configure scripting on a per-site
> basis. As soon as I run into a site that uses annoying scripting, it's
> bye-bye scripting for that site forever.
>

I use the NoScript addon for FireFox, which does the same thing. But I have 
my default set to "off" because I find that's usually the prefereable 
option. Even on sites that break without JS, viewing them with JS on is 
usually not much better - at least with JS off, they break *quickly* without 
wasting my time spinning their AJAX and jQuery wheels just so they can *sort 
of* work very, very slowly.

> In the past, I've even used UserJS to *edit* the site's JS on the fly to
> rewrite stupid JS code (like replace sniffBrowser() with a function that
> returns true, bwahahaha) while leaving the rest of the site functional.
> I do not merely hate Javascript, I fight it, kill it, and twist it to my
> own sinister ends.  >:-)
>

I admire that :) Personally, I don't have the patience. I just bitch and 
moan :)

>
> [...]
>> > I would think that you'd be running into problems like that all the
>> > time with the esoteric web browsing setup that you have.
>
> Esoteric?! Really? Whatever happened to those days of graceful
> degradation?
>

Why would you want graceful degredation? That would defeat the whole point: 
The whole point of our crusade is to *force* what we *know* to be newer and 
better unto all the unwashed masses.

Along the same lines: How long do you think it'll be before a cellular 
connection starts being required for using the internet? Or just certain 
sites?

Some people may think that's silly, but it's already happened for IM: 
Remember when IM was free ans accessible through *any* internet connection? 
Why was anyone ever willing to use that? Didn't they know get could *pay* to 
get the exact same service thanks to SMS? The IM networks still techincally 
exist, but you can't use them because everyone you'd talk to prefers to pay 
a cell company for SMS. Why use something free and open when you can pay for 
restricted access?

> Or are we sliding back into the bad ole days of gratuitous
> incompatibilities?

When has the web *ever* had that?  (Well, in 1996 maybe.)

But yea, I often feel like we've moved back into the old DOS days when 
software packages didn't interoperate, and data was almost inseperable from 
its software.

In 1994, games had to come with their own sound/video drivers. In 1995, MS 
fixed that and there was much rejoicing.

But in 2012:

- Every piece of content is packaged with a pre-chosen viewer.

- Every web site feels it has to include it's own social networking links.

- If you want to use GitHub/BitBucket-style DVCS features you have to use 
whichever interface is *provided* by whoever's hosting the repo. BitBucket 
can't access GitHub-hosted repos/projects. GitHub can't acces 
BitBucket-histed repos/projects. Neither can access local or self-hosted 
repos/projects. WTF is this, 1990 all over again?

And any mention of "maybe these aren't the best ways" is met with cries of 
"Heresy! Conform, you dinosaur!".

> And here I was, thinking that the W3C was attempting
> to make things interoperate...

Hah! I think the only thing the W3C is attempting to do is see how long they 
can do nothing before people start to call them on it.

Well, that's not fair. It's probably not "nothing". I'm sure there's also a 
bunch of "Google trying to throw their weight around" and "Everyone, ignore 
all the suggestions from MS - they're wrong by default, especially their box 
model, JS mouse-button API, and other such things that make our standards 
appear to be designed by retarded monkeys - it's just their way to trick 
us!".

>
>> It may seem that way, but it's *much* less trouble then what I had
>> before I blocked flash (with NoScript), installed AdBlock Plus, and
>> disabled JS (also with NoScript). Seriously. No exaggeration. I
>> literally *cannot* read a page when there's shit animating around it.
> [...]
>
> Opera has content blocking. :-) It's configurable per-site, even. I
> actively use it on sites where things flash around for no good reason.

Yup, same with NoScript. It replaces Flash and Java applets with placeholder 
boxes. In the rare cases where I want to view it, I just click it. Per-site 
configurable, too.

> OTOH, when >50% of a site is just random animated junk, I just leave and
> never return, 'cos whoever runs the site obviously doesn't have anything
> useful to offer me anyway. It's a pretty reliable indicator of site
> quality, actually. And of whether I want to bother giving it another
> second of my time.
>

Yea.

>
> -- 
> "640K ought to be enough" -- Bill G., 1984. "The Internet is not a
> primary goal for PC usage" -- Bill G., 1995. "Linux has no impact on
> Microsoft's strategy" -- Bill G., 1999.

I've heard that Gates never actually said that "640k" quote. (Don't know 
whether that's true or not, though :/ )