Web programming tools

[Dan Shafer]

>. I am not writing the  tutorial as a
>> Rev stack because it's a chapter in my book, which
>> needs ultimately to be a PDF, but I had toyed with the
>> idea of creating a sort of CGI-maker stack.
>> 
>
>No! Please! Not PDF! 
>PDF is useful for one thing only: convincing stuffy
>academics that your online academic article is "the
>real thing". And corporate boards of directors. Other
>than that it sucks. Why?
We will simply have to disagree on this point. To produce anything resembling a single-file "book" like object that is portable, includes images, is easily printable, contains embedded hyperlinks, and doesn't depend on the browser incomopatibilities of HTML, there is no better solution than PDF.
>1) I have to launch acrobat. 10-30 seconds downtime
>(ugh)
The file itself takes longer to download than the app does to launch and if you use an Acrobat plug-in (free), launch times are considerably less than you report. And why is 10 seconds or even 30 seconds such a big deal? If I used HTML instead, would you expect the entire rendering of a 30- or 40-page book chapter with images to be faster? Maybe, but not much.

This feels like a strong over-reaction to me.

>2) I cannot copy and paste - so say you have code I
>would like to reuse/edit, well ok I CAN coerce a PDF
>file - do you want to? I sure don't.
>
That's just not true. A PDF file can be published in such a way that readers have permission to copy and paste text. Mine will.

>Other than this I see honestly no use for PDF. Oh wait,
>it may have a proprietary use since you can password
>encrypt it. Lovely. Proprietary data. Oh wait,
>information is only useful when shared, cannot be
>consumed and actually increases in value with
>diffusion. 
>
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