From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Adonay Felipe Nogueira Subject: Re: General advice beyond Org Date: Fri, 18 May 2018 16:57:48 -0300 Message-ID: <87tvr4ka83.fsf@hyperbola.info> References: <7dc580d0ea76c21328dc586ffadb5499@openmail.cc> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36604) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fJlVq-0002pD-Ul for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 18 May 2018 15:58:04 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fJlVm-0001rs-6J for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 18 May 2018 15:58:03 -0400 Received: from relay3-d.mail.gandi.net ([217.70.183.195]:54683) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1fJlVl-0001rO-Sw for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 18 May 2018 15:57:58 -0400 Received: from pc1 (unknown [179.220.58.104]) (Authenticated sender: adfeno@hyperbola.info) by relay3-d.mail.gandi.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 7193860013 for ; Fri, 18 May 2018 21:57:53 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <7dc580d0ea76c21328dc586ffadb5499@openmail.cc> (edgar@openmail.cc's message of "Fri, 18 May 2018 00:28:22 +0000") List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Emacs-orgmode" To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org 2018-05-18T00:28:22+0000 edgar@openmail.cc wrote: > Hello, > > _I_ need help. I am in graduate school, and I keep having issues with I'm undergraduating (seeking a bachelor's degree in organization management). :D > _I_ need help. I am in graduate school, and I keep having issues with > my advisor for my strong inclination to use free software. I am > obviously not in position to refuse, but she dislikes to have At first glance I would recommend you to keep using free/libre software only, and advocating for it where you live, work and study. But please read on... > discussions about it. She pays a stipend to me every month, and my > tuition is waved. ... Now this is a tricky challenge. Not that difficult, but as far as I can see these are the options: a) worst: make the compromise and use these non-free tools in your computer (the same applies when using a virtual machine or a container), because all-in-alll, it's still your personal computer. Besides, the virtual machine or container can misbehave and impact your real system or personal files. You will still have to deal with side-effects caused by loss of control over your own computing, let alone the need to learn how to use that non-free tool; b) somewhat better, although slow: use another computer (or get one from a rent) to do the work, and only do the work with that machine. The same case described in the second paragraph of (a) applies here; c) better: do it with only free/libre software, and perhaps even teach or show the people involved how to make use of tools that support your workflow. For example Software Carpentry has awesome collaborative material on the basics of VCS using Git and of statistics wih R. If you don't have time to teach, make use of a tool that eases *them* participating in their terms. As an example, I'm writing my final course work using Org-mode, LaTeX and TikZ/PGF (this last one is for graphics), and whenever I want to send a snapshot for review to my advisor I do so through making a .pdf, but there is even more... The .pdf files don't actually track changes, so I must go into the extra step of doing the following: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- # # Convert old .pdf work snapshot to text. Makes a .txt file of the same # name, minus ".pdf". Caution here because if you don't specify a name or # path to place the .txt file, `pdftotext' will put it in the same # directory where the original is, contrary to what most commands do in # GNU+Linux. In Trisquel 8.0 Flidas, `pdftotext' comes from the # "poppler-utils" package. pdftotext "Documents/Work_---_2018-05-01.pdf" # Same for current .pdf which will be sent. pdftotext "Work.pdf" # Use GNU `diff' to produce Unified diff for text-only content. For us # who use GNU+Linux or GNU-with-Linux computers (GC) the diff files # commonly have .diff or .patch extensions, but we use .txt here so that # users of Windows computers (WC) can open those with ease in their # default plain text editor. diff -u "Work_---_2018-05-01.txt" "Work.txt" > "Work_diff.txt" # Among other unknown reasons, WCs make use of "\r\n" (carriage return # followed by line feed, commonly known as "CRLF" or "CR+LF") in the end # of each line to distinguish these plain text files from binary files. # WCs' default notepad will open a non-CRLF file but with all lines # joined, so we correct that using the `sed' line below. The side-effect # for us GC users is that some editing software might present two line # breaks. sed -i '/\r$/! { s/\($\)/\r\1/g }' "Work_diff.txt" --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Then send them both the .pdf and the diff file (the one which has .txt extension of course). And explain to them that the .txt is plain text that can be opened in plain text editor (usually called "Notepad" in Windows), and mention that it essentially shows the difference between old and new versions, and that: - Lines that begin with "+ " is new content; - ... "- " old content being removed; - ... "@@ -old_start,count_old +new_start,count_new @@" a line jump to given "old_start" line in the old file. With all that said, the advantages of .pdf files is that the advisors can highlight and annote/comment on these, save the changes and send it back to you (they can't change the structure or content of the document itself, but can at least give you hints). With all the options I presented, there is still another issue which is quite common at least in the college I study: the advisors don't actually orient people that well here, so even if someone theoretically decides to "suck it up and use non-free software anyways" this doesn't stop the advisor from being too vague as to give comments such as "it's not compliant with the institutional norms" (what exactly is not compliant?! And how?!). > As a student or junior faculty, how do you go about this? Do you just > nod and wave your freedom good bye? Particularly I would make use of (b) or (c), but not (a). I hope this has shed some light. Respectfully, Adonay. --=20 - Formas de contato: https://libreplanet.org/wiki/User:Adfeno#vCard - Ativista do /software/ livre (n=C3=A3o confundir com gratuito). 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