On Tue, 2002-12-31 at 10:21, Bruce Sass wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Dec 2002, Darren Freeman wrote:
> > On Sat, 2002-12-28 at 07:23, Bruce Sass wrote:
> > > On Thu, 27 Dec 2002, Darren Freeman wrote:
> > > > > > So I would say this: apart from obvious shortening of bloated symbols,
> > > > > > leave them readable (and compatible!). As long as gzipping becomes the
> > > > > > standard, that's a good thing since it's a tiny penalty for a large
> > > > > > gain.
> > > > >
> > > > > Frankly, I consider it a hack.
> > >
> > > ya, also, "tiny" and "large" are relative
> > >
> > > I think the gain would depend on the situation; negative in the case
> > > of nothing but small live files, huge for archives of large files.
> > > Is one group more important than the other?
> >
> > No. But how many "small" LyX files have you seen lately? =)
>
> That is all I usually see. Lately I've been importing programs
> (scripts of a few K, those small and poorly documented system level
> bits of code I've generated) by wrapping them with LyX or LaTeX and
> NoWeb. I'll get around to generating the templates for the wrappers
> directly from .lyx files sooner or later. So, I'm doing both small
> files and editor manipulations.
Even those files sound like they benefit from compression. Try it on
them and see, I'd be amazed if a script wrapped in LyX wouldn't compress
nicely.
But when I made the comment I was referring to how large a seemingly
empty LyX-generated document is nowadays =)
> > > Making compressed the default is raising the bar wrt systems LyX is
> > > usable with, for no clear benefit. An old slow box can probably get a
> > > new HD, cheap, but it is a lot tougher to cope with running out of CPU
> > > cycles, memory, or patience...
> >
> > I never said make it the *only* choice, just the default. Those that
> > have slow boxes will most probably be clever enough to deselect a
> > checkbox (or change the extension).
>
> Making compressed the default means that in addition to uncompressing
> that tarball I just downloaded, I'll have to wait for LyX to
> uncompress the .lyx files in it. If I manually uncompress packaged
> stuff it will be left behind as cruft when a new version of the
> package is installed (the files don't appear in the package manager's
> DB)... but I guess that wouldn't matter 'cause I'd be going in to
> uncompress the LyX User's Guide anyways.
Whoa - how *slow* is your box??? Decompressing small text files, like
100k, isn't supposed to be obviously slower than just reading them off
the disc. My old Amiga did that pretty quickly and it ran at 28 MHz.
Why exactly would you be uncompressing the users guide manually? The
whole *point* is for it to be automatic. And if you remain with an old
version of LyX then I would expect that you have an old version of the
UG, so you don't need to decompress it anyway.
> I would much rather see LyX default to using the fastest method
> possible with respect to file handling, even if that means a less
> human readable .lyx... but compressing everything is the kind of
Well as of right now we have a certain LyX format. Doing nothing to it
is the most compatible thing we can do. Compressing it with gzip is not
a lot worse as everyone with a half decent OS has gunzip handy.
The chances are that people reading a new LyX file on an old version of
LyX will get a segfault anyway so they probably don't care about
backwards compatibility =)
But in the interests of not gutting the core of LyX the text version of
the file shouldn't be mangled to bits to save space. That's what
compression is for.
> thing best handled by a filesystem (imo). I mean, if I want to
There's nothing wrong with compressing files!
If I email a file to a friend I appreciate it being a small file, even
if we both use compressed filesystems. I shouldn't have to manually
compress it, it should just be small already. Same if I burn a CD or do
a million other file related things that don't use my host filesystem.
> encrypt everything I install CFS, do "cattach secret-lyx-files" and
> work as normal, if my system can handle or I'm willing to put up with
> the overhead.
>
>
> > > I would love to see LyX transparently handle *.lyx.{gz,bz2,zip,?} or
> > > *.ly{g,b,z,?} (respectively), but it should be up to the user to
> > > determine what the default behaviour will be.
> >
> > Of course.
> >
> > > Maybe system and user preference options like `default compression
> > > method', `enable automatic (re)compression', `compressed file suffix
> > > style (force it or not)', ..., along with a `save as compressed' menu
> > > item or [none, gzip, bzip, zip, ?], etc. radio buttons in a `save
> > > file' dialog, eh.
> >
> > Too many options bamboozle newbies. I know ;) Most people won't have an
> > issue with compressing new files, I expect. Many won't even know the
> > difference.
>
> Ok, so put them in an "advanced options" dialog/submenu, with
> defaults set to the status quo. ;)
I honestly don't see where your resistance to moving everyone over to
compression is coming from. Even coputers from 10 years ago can handle
compressing a text file. People saving documents in LyX 1.3 format are
going to get used to a lack of backwards compatibility anyway so what's
the big deal?
> - Bruce
Darren
