Fun Stuff > CLIKC
PDFs arent like democracy at all
snubnose:
I dont know if PDF will die or not, but its not a great format either way. *shrug*
Mostly because program A does this and program B does that with that format, and you dont even know why.
Having a standard doesnt help and no, I dont consider standards I have to pay money for as free.
And no, PDF is NOT open source. Its not even a program in the first place; its a file format.
Also you dont have to pay for open source, either. You CAN, but you dont have to.
XML probably will never die. Because its actually a free standard. Also, it makes sense.
Unix will probably never die. Heck, all operating systems are basically Unix now.
cybersmurf:
PDF is good at what it does: consistent display across platforms and programs, read only, password protectable, friggin' fillable and saveable forms in an otherwise read only file and several other nifty features. Does it do it the best way? Nope. Partially not even close. But it's around, and it works.
Tova:
I've been following this thread and I still have almost no idea why people actually dislike PDFs.
Apart from maybe that the standard wasn't written by Linus Torvalds.
Yeah, you have to pay $$ for any ISO standard. And it is expensive, I agree. However, the upside is that the standard contains stuff the industry actually needs rather than being left to the developers who are more motivated by what they personally think is important (unpaid developers are perfectly at liberty to do this, of course, which is why the very best open source software is written by programmers who eat their own dog food).
If you are a serious PDF developer, rather then pay for individual copies of the standard, you'd be better off joining the PDF association where you can access drafts and influence the direction of the standard.
Everyone's, including Jeph, is saying "eh, it's not perfect, but it's the best we've got," and I don't disagree - of course it's not perfect. Duh. But what specifically do you dislike about it? I was really hoping that someone would go into that.
For the cheap seats at the back: PDF 2.0 is an open standard. Not free as in beer. Free as in freedom. Anyone can buy a copy of the standard and implement readers and/or writers, and pay zero royalties.
PDF may not be a program, but I'm not sure I've seen a single person so far with direct experience with the standard. One person had direct experience with postscript and seemed unaware that PDF is a superset of the postscript programming language. Maybe snubnose has, but since you said you couldn't freely access the standard, I'm not 100% clear on it.
Maybe you're all conflating your complaints about the standard with complaints about the software you have to use that writes or reads PDFs.
Now, come on, stop being halfhearted about it and take a proper shot.
By the way, if you're really curious, it is possible to download your very own copy of the PDF 1.7 standard. Free as in beer.
Also BTW, if you're looking for software, Foxit is decent. The reader is free. The writer costs money, but at least it is one off, as opposed to Adobe's somewhat exorbitant subscription cost.
Have at it.
P.S. I neglected to address the one concrete complaint at the top of the thread. Yes, it is a big standard, and working with it is difficult. Implementing it accurately can be obscenely difficult.
P.P.S. XML sucks. Fight me.
flfederation:
--- Quote from: Tova on 14 Jul 2020, 16:22 ---I've been following this thread and I still have almost no idea why people actually dislike PDFs.
--- End quote ---
They aren't trivial to edit, very few readers can wrap the text (partly because PDF was designed to simulate or facilitate printout, "wrap" is taken care of prior to "setting" the document, not at read time) and they are very demanding of resources / inefficient.
And there isn't much you can do about it except hate PDFs. I wouldn't say I hate them, though I can say I sympathise with those who dislike them. As for XML, it's about as bloated as a plaintext format can get, though only in practice. In theory it's practically unobtrusive. So I can't really say I'm a fan of either. I have a friend who hates markdown-- all these formats have their own features that make them "terrible" in one way or another. PLAINTEXT 4EVER! Although to be fair, that's another kettle of fish.
Tova:
None of the formats you mentioned is terrible (in spite of my previous crack about XML sucking) - merely not fit for every conceivable circumstance. Use the right tool for the job, and you will have a happier life.
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