In Praise of Ascii (well, unicode .. but)
There is a very modern, entirely new technology: WYSIWIS
What is WYSIWIS you may ask, well
What You See Is What I See
Much like its earlier sibling, WYSIWYG .. it is a contract between two
entities to agree on what is viewed. In WYSIWYG's case, a printer and
a computer.
Think of WYSIWIS as the same, but between people, the "social" version
of WYSIWYG.
When I send you unformatted text, we have a chance of having the same
visual experience.
When one uses formatted text, a very strange phenomenon ensues: they
chose a font they like, and it's size, and all is yummy. But alas, my
machine hath not this font, nor does it agree on what the size really
should be, for my machine hath a Different Notion of what Size might
mean.
But when using blessed Unformatted Text, all is well because I get to
choose both the font and size for they are in My Power, via the Great
Configuration of my Device.
So gentle reader, you'll see that WYSIWIS is a kindness to all and a
Great Way to get along with each other.
Amen
-- Owen
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