兩位名人的個人網頁
發信人: william@cis_nctu (何陋居主), 信區: 'CompBook'
標 題: 兩位名人的個人網頁
發信站: 交大資科_BBS (Tue Feb 9 00:20:43 1999)
來 源: cissun52
在整理 Netscape Communicator 書籤時, 看到幾位 CS 界名人的網頁 URL,
想想有陣子沒進去逛逛了, 就去復習復習...
其中, 有兩位大大的網頁, 有些內容恰好與最近自己所思所想的有點關聯...
一位是 Andrew S. Tanenbaum, 另一位是 W. Richard Stevens。
● Andrew S. Tanenbaum (http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/)
──────────────────────────
凡是 CS 的學生,
大概很少沒讀過他的 OS、computer organization、network 教科書吧,
他也是難得一見的、行文風格相當棒、卻又如此多產（書籍 & 程式）的知名學者。
他的網頁裡, 有兩個頁面很有趣：
1. Andrew S. Tanenbaum's Personal FAQ
(http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/ast_home_page/faq.html)
哈, 大概名人每天的 email, 不是被垃圾信填滿,
就是被慕名者東問西問的問題給問怕了... 索性來個 FAQ...
（Bjarne Stroustrup 也是：http://www.research.att.com/~bs/bs_faq.html
待會兒會介紹的 W. Richard Stevens 也是。）
摘錄幾則我覺得很有趣的問答：
* Q: Where did you go to school?
A: High School: White Plains High School
College: M.I.T.
Ph.D.: University of California at Berkeley
Q: Which one did you like best?
A: High school was ok, but my real love was the stage crew,
of which I was electrician.
Nobody likes M.I.T. People respect it. I respect it.
But like it? Does anyone like taking a drink from a fire hose?
I am still in awe of the place.
I loved Berkeley and the Bay Area.
（贊曰：心有戚戚焉... :q ）
* Q: Did you experience culture shock going from M.I.T. to Berkeley?
A: Oh my goodness. Yes. It was so strange to be in an environment
with people having I.Q.'s below 150 and where it wasn't necessary
to study 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week just to keep up.
（贊曰：哈... 這是稱讚嗎？...）
* Q: Do you have any hobbies?
A: My wife says that playing with the computer is my hobby. [...略...]
（贊曰：哈...）
* Q: What is Amsterdam like?
A: It is a pleasant, peaceful city, not too big, not too small,
just right.
I like the weather--dull gray and drizzly most of the year.
Great weather for being indoors with a warm computer.
（贊曰：最後一句真是峰迴路轉呀... 且能與上一個問答相呼應... 呵）
* Q: How much email do you get?
A: Too much. Much as I might like to. I really cannot
help undergraduates all over the world with their homework
or help graduate students choose thesis topics,
or write tenure letters for assistant professors I have never heard of
or give product recommendations,
or tell you how to set up your network
or help you find references to interesting papers
or help you find a job
or engage in a discussion about your favorite topic or ...
Nevertheless, I am constantly being asked to do all these things,
and in great volume.
（贊曰：唉∼∼∼名人的悲哀!）
* Q: What OS do you run?
A: I run MINIX on the Pentium.
It is small and fast. I like speed and dislike features.
Features (e.g., window systems) slow things down.
（贊曰：這也難怪... MINIX 就是他自己寫的呀！哈）
※ 底下是一連串很精彩的排版論：
* Q: Which editor do you use for producing books?
A: I use the elle editor (a stripped down emacs clone, but very fast).
I am probably the only elle user in the world, but I still like it.
I have a mouse, but don't have a mouse driver for MINIX and
have never felt the need to write one.
Typing "rm x y z" is a lot faster than clicking five times and then
having to convince the system that you really,
truly, mean it and this is not a mistake and that you are consenting
adult over 18 and that you completely understand the consequences and
you still want to do it.
（贊曰：突然覺得, 像我們這些曾經歷過 DOS 和 UNIX 時代的人,
實在很值得驕傲... ;-> ）
Q: Do you like WYSIWYG systems?
A: Definitely not. I can type faster than I can point. Also,
I can add a couple of pages of material to the start of a chapter,
then skip down 175 pages to add a new problem to the end of the file.
Skipping 175 pages after adding new material using elle takes
maybe 100 msec--I hit the END key and the screen is full instantly.
Having to wait until some WYSIWYG editor reformatted 175 pages
would be unbearable.
（贊曰：哈, 這些 UNIX 老玩家的特殊脾氣就要開始出現啦...）
Q: What typesetting system do you use?
A: All my typesetting is done using troff.
I don't have any need to see what the output will look like.
I am quite convinced that troff will follow my instructions dutifully.
If I give it the macro to insert a second-level heading,
it will do that in the correct font and size, with the correct spacing,
adding extra space to align facing pages down to the pixel if need be.
Why should I worry about that?
WYSIWYG is a step backwards. Human labor is used to do that
which the computer can do better. Also, using troff means that
the text is in ASCII, and I have a bunch of shell scripts that
operate on files (whole chapters) to do things like produce a
histogram by year of all the references.
That would be much harder and slower if the text were kept
in some manufacturer's proprietary format.
（贊曰：哈... 似乎 UNIX 老玩家, 要嘛就是堅持使用 troff,
要嘛就是使用 TeX/LaTeX, 反正就是使用這些幕後排版系統就對了！
不過看這些用 troff 或 TeX/LaTeX 排出來的論文及書籍,
專業程度的確不遜於現今風行的幕前排版系統, 有些功能甚至做得更好呢！
看看中文排版系統九牛二虎做出來的東東, 有沒有比別人輕鬆做出來的效果好.
對了, 有沒有人知道怎麼樣在 Word 裡面,
「自動」(是自動喔！不是人工手動) 做出洋文書常見的這種功能：
第 18 頁頁眉：「C++ 程式語言經典本 第 18 頁」
第 19 頁頁眉：「1.2.1 C++ 歷史 第 19 頁」
第 20 頁頁眉：「C++ 程式語言經典本 第 20 頁」
第 21 頁頁眉：「1.2.4 C++ 設計理念 第 21 頁」
這種功能, 對 troff 或 TeX/LaTeX 來說, 太基本了...
沒辦法在 Word 裡面自動做出來, 深表遺憾...
）
Q: What's wrong with LaTeX?
A: Nothing, but real authors use troff.
（贊曰：酷！）
2. Structured Computer Organization 4/e 索引頁
(http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/sco4/bookindex.html)
看看人家做的索引的詳盡程度, 真是佩服...
● W. Richard Stevens (http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/)
─────────────────────────────
凡是涉獵到 UNIX 及 TCP/IP 系統的人, 也很少沒拜讀他的幾本巨著。
他的網頁裡, 有幾個有趣的東東：
1. W. Richard Stevens's FAQ (http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/rstevensfaq.html)
他的 FAQ 就比較中規中矩、不那麼趣味橫生了, 不過仍值得細讀：
* Q: Didn't you write some books with Doug Comer?
A: No, that's David L. Stevens at Purdue. We're different people.
（贊曰：「姓」相近的困擾... :q 偏偏書籍主題又那麼重疊... 難怪會弄混）
* Q: How long does it take to write a book?
A: It takes me about 2 hours per page. That time includes everything
required to produce camera-ready PostScript files for the publisher.
So for a 600-page book, it's about 1,200 hours.
You could cut this down a little if you didn't produce
camera-ready files (i.e., let the publisher do the page layout and
indexing) but I like complete control over the final result.
（贊曰：有道理... 還是自己掌控比較放心...）
（對了, 有國內出版商能夠像國外那樣接受 PostScript 檔案嗎？）
* Q: Do you respond to email?
A: Yes. My email address is at the end of the Preface of each of my books
and I read all the email that I receive.
Unfortunately the quantity of email that I receive has forced me
to develop a few form letters over the past years.
The quickest way to receive a form letter from me is to send me
source code that you want me to debug for you (don't laugh,
you would be surprised how many of these I get).
The next quickest way is to send me the make output from trying
to build some of the source code from one of my books,
asking me to tell you what to fix--my publishers graciously allow
all the code to be made available, but the code is provided "as is"
with no support implied. Most of the these problems should be posted
to the Unix-version-specific newsgroup.
I also get lots of detailed questions on things that I wrote
years ago, and, believe it or not, I do not have immediate recall of
all these details. My basic rule is that if I can answer a question
on the top of my head, in a few lines, I always do.
But it it requires that I pull out a book to understand more of
the topic, or exchange numerous emails with the sender to figure out
more details about the problem, I simply do not have the time.
Many of the programming questions that readers send me should be
posted to some Usenet newsgroup (comp.unix.programmer is typical).
（贊曰：好長的苦水∼∼∼）
* Q: I am interested in writing a book. What should I do?
A: The technical book market is totally different from the fiction market.
Technical publishers are always looking for good books,
even from unknown authors. My suggestion is to first write something
(a few chapters that are typical of the book) and then contact a
publisher [... 略 ...]
（太長了... 自己去看原文吧！）
* Q: You don't really write your books using troff, do you?
A: Of course. What else is there?
Troff is an industrial strength package that I have spent years of
my life learning. I use a modified version of the -ms macros
for everything that I write. There are numerous "tweaks" that
I apply to my troff input before troff formats the pages, and
I just can't imagine trying to implement some of these details
with something like Frame. I also use pic for all the figures.
I can type faster than I can move a mouse, so I find menu-driven
drawing packages time consuming and frustrating.
I don't use TeX because for years TeX and PostScript really didn't go
together. If my writing contained more math, I might consider
switching to TeX.
As a side note about camera ready copy ... In 1989 when I finished UNP,
publishers were not fully prepared to handle camera ready copy,
except from places like Bell Labs, which had their own typesetters.
So when UNP was all done, I wrote the PostScript files in 15-page
pieces to six 1.2 Mbyte MS-DOS diskettes and drove the diskettes myself
from New Haven to Typesetting Service Corp. in Providence, Rhode Island.
They sent the typeset pages via FedEx to Prentice Hall two days later,
and I paid for the typesetting on my Visa (781 pages at $4 per page,
for a total of $3,124), which Prentice Hall reimbursed me for later.
Today one just sends the final PostScript to the publisher using ftp,
and they take care of the actual typesetting.
（贊曰：又是一位堅守 troff 的人... AT&T 裡面的人也都是這樣...
不過在處理像 "The C++ Programming Language" 3/e 的程式碼格式時,
若沒有幕後排版系統那種超強的 programmable 能力,
單用幕前排版系統來做時, 會累死人... !@#%$%^&*@...
Word 的 VBA?? 拜託......
）
※ FAQ 裡面還有很多值得思考參考的事情...
2. Typesetting (http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/#typesetting)
這裡講到他是如何處理
* 書籍版面 (http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/pagelayout.html)
* 索引製作 (http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/indexing.html)
* 示意圖 (http://www.kohala.com/~rstevens/chartjunk.html)
算是相當實用的經驗談。
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≡ 何陋居 ≡ 練從難處練，用從易處用。
武 諺
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* Origin: ★ 交通大學資訊科學系 BBS ★ <bbs.cis.nctu.edu.tw: 140.113.23.3>
