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 Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2009 5:18 pm Post subject: Open source software (OSS) - The OSS-bashing must stop NOW! |
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Calvin Smith,
I think that you are one of the smartest, most helpful, and most
knowledgeable participants on this mailing list. Your knowledge of
litigation support in general, Concordance in particular, and
Microsoft-centric tools impresses me greatly and favorably. On the other
hand, some of your words astonish me. See more below.
| Quote: |
Calvin Smith wrote:
| Quote: |
Yawn! I just got off a very long flight from Los Angeles and only
read
a small portion of your lengthy reply. Let me just quickly write that:
(1) I'm constantly contacted by recruiters world-wide who work in this
industry (plus who hangout in this forum) and Perl has never once been
on a litigation support job description. However, MS Access has always
been on all of the litigation support job descriptions that I have seen
100% of the time; if for nothing else, just to know how to parse data
when needed. If anyone else has seen Perl on a litigation support job
description, please "raise your hand" and then tell us why you chose to
go work on the moon.
|
|
Legal headhunters, law firms, and other employers in the legal sector
do not ask for Perl skills (and other OSS skills) solely because they
are _ignorant_ of the utility of Perl and other OSS tools. The fact that
employers do not ask for OSS skills does _not_ imply that OSS tools are
not enormously useful in the legal technology world (LTW). Indeed, OSS
tools have great applicability to, and utility in, the LTW, and none are
more applicable or more useful than Perl and Linux.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
(2) Further, I would advise you, Jim, to stop
trying to guess what's going on in Ed's database and (3) since you are
not familiar with writing CPL code, then you are probably not the best
person to say that something should be done in that language.
|
|
Calvin,
It is possible to express opinions regarding an IT tool even if you are
not an expert on that tool. For example, I know little about
Ruby-on-Rails, but I know that it is very useful for developing web
applications and that it is one of the best web application development
frameworks.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
One should
be familiar with a language at a near-expert level in my opinion before
making such strong suggestions publicly.
|
|
Calvin,
I disagree. I know little about, say, C#, VB.net, and other components
of DotNet, but I am able to express some strong and _valid_ opinions
about them, e.g., they do not run well on Linux or *BSD, which means
that they are doomed because, in the future, nearly all servers will run
either Linux or *BSD.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
In closing (back to helping Ed), if no one on Ed's team knows VBA to
make the minor necessary adjustments to my SAMPLE function that I
graciously offered, then I will make the function not have the 99 limit
myself within a half a minute, and for absolutely free.
|
|
Well, Calvin, I am glad to see that you know enough about the OSS
revolution (OSSR) in order to understand that releasing software for
free is often a good practice.
See my further remarks, below.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
What I won't do though, Jim, is get caught up in "senseless
hypotheticals" with you.
|
| Quote: |
-----Original Message-----
From: "jim.monty" <jim.monty@yahoo.com ([email]jim.monty%40yahoo.com[/email])>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:56:26
To: <litsupport ([email]litsupport%40yahoogroups.com[/email])>
Subject: [litsupport] Re: Concordance bates # search
Calvin Smith wrote:
| Quote: |
Regarding you not being much of a programmer, the
|
| Quote: |
DetermineBatesPages() function that I passed along last week does
|
| Quote: |
all of the busy work for you within MS Access...
|
No it doesn't. You yourself pointed out in a subsequent post that it
only works for Bates numbers up to 99. And the hardwired way the
DetermineBatesPages() VBA function parses and then reconstructs Bates
numbers is not sufficiently general enough for practical use. Finally,
it operates only on data stored in a proprietary, commercial and
expensive RDBMS; it doesn't work on data stored either in Concordance or
in standard Concordance data interchange files (i.e., DAT and LOG files).
| Quote: |
...if your database does not have any suffixes (NOTE: Most
|
What if, despite your asserted proportions of things, there *are*
suffixes? And what about gaps?
The bottom line is that the way you demonstrated computing Bates
numbers arithmetically is not general enough or extensible enough for
practical use. The DetermineBatesPages() VBA function suffers from
Bates' Folly: it treats Bates numbers as though they are integers.
(They're not.)
|
|
Jim Monty,
Interesting. I did not know this fact.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
I would be careful including Perl and other non-industry standard
|
| Quote: |
solutions into my workflow if I were you so you (and your
|
| Quote: |
department) don't potentially become dependent on something that no
|
| Quote: |
one in your group has experience using or modifying, if needed.
|
Poppycock! It's software bigotry to claim that Perl is "non-industry
|
standard" and that, somehow, someway, Microsoft Office Access and Visual
Basic for Applications *are* industry standard. Who decided this
industry standard? Why do you presume Ed and his department are VBA
programmers and not Perl programmers?
|
Jim Monty,
I agree that Calvin's statement expresses extreme "software bigotry,"
but I would like to add that Calvin's statement is actually worse than
that. It manifests a hostility to, and a poor understanding of, OSS and
the OSS Revolution. **EVERYONE,** READ THESE PROPOSITIONS CAREFULLY:
1) The most important trend in IT today is the OSS Revolution (OSSR).
2) The intelligence of an IT professional (ITP) is commensurate with his
or her understanding of the OSSR. The better that an ITP understands the
OSSR, the greater his or her intellect.
If these two propositions, above, are _not_ obvious to you by now, then:
(a) you are too stupid to be an IT professional, and (b) to the extent
that the IT world overlaps the LTW, you probably should not be an LT
(Legal technology) professional, either.
Calvin, __PLEASE__ understand that, notwithstanding the paragraphs
immediately above, I am __NOT__ attacking you. I am attacking your
anti-OSS opinions and your ignorance. Calvin, you _must_ develop a
better understanding of the OSSR. Your career depends on your
understanding the OSSR.
Folks, I have grown tired of the OSS-bashing that I sometimes read on
this list. Stop denying the obvious, to wit, the primacy of the the
OSSR. Learn OSS now. Do not wait any longer. The longer you wait, the
greater the chance that the OSS juggernaut will overtake you and
steamroll you, grinding you into the ground.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
Let me be clear and say something I should have stated plainly
|
earlier: Microsoft Office Access with VBA is a poor choice of tool to
use for simple text processing tasks. For these chores, modern scripting
languages such as Perl, Python, Ruby and Microsoft PowerShell are
superior choices. In fact, even an older scripting language like AWK is
much better than VBA for text processing. Two important reasons these
scripting languages are better than VBA is that they natively support
associative arrays (hashes) and regular expression pattern matching. VBA
does not.
|
Jim,
I agree completely.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
The recommendation to use Microsoft Office Access to aggregate and
|
serialize ("stringify") Bates numbers is a poor one. I recommend using
CPL instead. If CPL is not a practical option, then I recommend using
another scripting language designed for text processing instead.
|
Jim,
Once again, your point is well taken.
Sincerely,
Paul Bain, Esq.
---------------------------------------------------
A lawyer, an IT professional, and an expert
on open source software (OSS).
PaulBain@PObox.com ([email]PaulBain%40PObox.com[/email])
(703) 876-4778
http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbain
---------------------------------------------------
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Guest
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 4:26 am Post subject: Open source software (OSS) - The OSS-bashing must stop NOW! |
|
|
First, I do like OSS - most of the time however, the licenses behind OSS preclude me from actually USING OSS software in the products we develop. I end up having to spend a great deal of time trying to obtain licenses from individuals or groups without a head. Then, if I do end up having to fix a bug or make a code change, I now have to submit it to the OSS developers for the project and/or become responsible for it now and in the future.
No thanks. I'd actually rather buy a license to the source if I really needed it, than deal with an OSS management nightmare.
Also I love how you insist that Windows-world is collapsing and doom-and-glooming it. It's dramatic, it's laughable, and I enjoy the humor so by all means keep it up. There's a guy on our street corner downtown who holds his bible over his head and shouts until he's hoarse about the end of the world. He's been there every day for as many years as I can remember. I guess he thinks if he shouts it loud enough and long enough, it'll actually happen.
So keep on shouting Paul!
From: litsupport ([email]litsupport%40yahoogroups.com[/email]) [mailto:litsupport ([email]litsupport%40yahoogroups.com[/email])] On Behalf Of Paul D. Bain
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 8:27 AM
To: litsupport ([email]litsupport%40yahoogroups.com[/email])
Subject: [litsupport] Open source software (OSS) - The OSS-bashing must stop NOW!
Calvin Smith,
I think that you are one of the smartest, most helpful, and most
knowledgeable participants on this mailing list. Your knowledge of
litigation support in general, Concordance in particular, and
Microsoft-centric tools impresses me greatly and favorably. On the other
hand, some of your words astonish me. See more below.
| Quote: |
Calvin Smith wrote:
| Quote: |
Yawn! I just got off a very long flight from Los Angeles and only
read
a small portion of your lengthy reply. Let me just quickly write that:
(1) I'm constantly contacted by recruiters world-wide who work in this
industry (plus who hangout in this forum) and Perl has never once been
on a litigation support job description. However, MS Access has always
been on all of the litigation support job descriptions that I have seen
100% of the time; if for nothing else, just to know how to parse data
when needed. If anyone else has seen Perl on a litigation support job
description, please "raise your hand" and then tell us why you chose to
go work on the moon.
|
|
Legal headhunters, law firms, and other employers in the legal sector
do not ask for Perl skills (and other OSS skills) solely because they
are _ignorant_ of the utility of Perl and other OSS tools. The fact that
employers do not ask for OSS skills does _not_ imply that OSS tools are
not enormously useful in the legal technology world (LTW). Indeed, OSS
tools have great applicability to, and utility in, the LTW, and none are
more applicable or more useful than Perl and Linux.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
(2) Further, I would advise you, Jim, to stop
trying to guess what's going on in Ed's database and (3) since you are
not familiar with writing CPL code, then you are probably not the best
person to say that something should be done in that language.
|
|
Calvin,
It is possible to express opinions regarding an IT tool even if you are
not an expert on that tool. For example, I know little about
Ruby-on-Rails, but I know that it is very useful for developing web
applications and that it is one of the best web application development
frameworks.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
One should
be familiar with a language at a near-expert level in my opinion before
making such strong suggestions publicly.
|
|
Calvin,
I disagree. I know little about, say, C#, VB.net, and other components
of DotNet, but I am able to express some strong and _valid_ opinions
about them, e.g., they do not run well on Linux or *BSD, which means
that they are doomed because, in the future, nearly all servers will run
either Linux or *BSD.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
In closing (back to helping Ed), if no one on Ed's team knows VBA to
make the minor necessary adjustments to my SAMPLE function that I
graciously offered, then I will make the function not have the 99 limit
myself within a half a minute, and for absolutely free.
|
|
Well, Calvin, I am glad to see that you know enough about the OSS
revolution (OSSR) in order to understand that releasing software for
free is often a good practice.
See my further remarks, below.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
What I won't do though, Jim, is get caught up in "senseless
hypotheticals" with you.
|
| Quote: |
-----Original Message-----
From: "jim.monty" <jim.monty@yahoo.com ([email]jim.monty%40yahoo.com[/email])<mailto:jim.monty%40yahoo.com>>
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:56:26
To: <litsupport ([email]litsupport%40yahoogroups.com[/email])<mailto:litsupport%40yahoogroups.com>>
Subject: [litsupport] Re: Concordance bates # search
Calvin Smith wrote:
| Quote: |
Regarding you not being much of a programmer, the
|
| Quote: |
DetermineBatesPages() function that I passed along last week does
|
| Quote: |
all of the busy work for you within MS Access...
|
No it doesn't. You yourself pointed out in a subsequent post that it
only works for Bates numbers up to 99. And the hardwired way the
DetermineBatesPages() VBA function parses and then reconstructs Bates
numbers is not sufficiently general enough for practical use. Finally,
it operates only on data stored in a proprietary, commercial and
expensive RDBMS; it doesn't work on data stored either in Concordance or
in standard Concordance data interchange files (i.e., DAT and LOG files).
| Quote: |
...if your database does not have any suffixes (NOTE: Most
|
What if, despite your asserted proportions of things, there *are*
suffixes? And what about gaps?
The bottom line is that the way you demonstrated computing Bates
numbers arithmetically is not general enough or extensible enough for
practical use. The DetermineBatesPages() VBA function suffers from
Bates' Folly: it treats Bates numbers as though they are integers.
(They're not.)
|
|
Jim Monty,
Interesting. I did not know this fact.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
I would be careful including Perl and other non-industry standard
|
| Quote: |
solutions into my workflow if I were you so you (and your
|
| Quote: |
department) don't potentially become dependent on something that no
|
| Quote: |
one in your group has experience using or modifying, if needed.
|
Poppycock! It's software bigotry to claim that Perl is "non-industry
|
standard" and that, somehow, someway, Microsoft Office Access and Visual
Basic for Applications *are* industry standard. Who decided this
industry standard? Why do you presume Ed and his department are VBA
programmers and not Perl programmers?
|
Jim Monty,
I agree that Calvin's statement expresses extreme "software bigotry,"
but I would like to add that Calvin's statement is actually worse than
that. It manifests a hostility to, and a poor understanding of, OSS and
the OSS Revolution. **EVERYONE,** READ THESE PROPOSITIONS CAREFULLY:
1) The most important trend in IT today is the OSS Revolution (OSSR).
2) The intelligence of an IT professional (ITP) is commensurate with his
or her understanding of the OSSR. The better that an ITP understands the
OSSR, the greater his or her intellect.
If these two propositions, above, are _not_ obvious to you by now, then:
(a) you are too stupid to be an IT professional, and (b) to the extent
that the IT world overlaps the LTW, you probably should not be an LT
(Legal technology) professional, either.
Calvin, __PLEASE__ understand that, notwithstanding the paragraphs
immediately above, I am __NOT__ attacking you. I am attacking your
anti-OSS opinions and your ignorance. Calvin, you _must_ develop a
better understanding of the OSSR. Your career depends on your
understanding the OSSR.
Folks, I have grown tired of the OSS-bashing that I sometimes read on
this list. Stop denying the obvious, to wit, the primacy of the the
OSSR. Learn OSS now. Do not wait any longer. The longer you wait, the
greater the chance that the OSS juggernaut will overtake you and
steamroll you, grinding you into the ground.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
Let me be clear and say something I should have stated plainly
|
earlier: Microsoft Office Access with VBA is a poor choice of tool to
use for simple text processing tasks. For these chores, modern scripting
languages such as Perl, Python, Ruby and Microsoft PowerShell are
superior choices. In fact, even an older scripting language like AWK is
much better than VBA for text processing. Two important reasons these
scripting languages are better than VBA is that they natively support
associative arrays (hashes) and regular expression pattern matching. VBA
does not.
|
Jim,
I agree completely.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
The recommendation to use Microsoft Office Access to aggregate and
|
serialize ("stringify") Bates numbers is a poor one. I recommend using
CPL instead. If CPL is not a practical option, then I recommend using
another scripting language designed for text processing instead.
|
Jim,
Once again, your point is well taken.
Sincerely,
Paul Bain, Esq.
---------------------------------------------------
A lawyer, an IT professional, and an expert
on open source software (OSS).
PaulBain@PObox.com ([email]PaulBain%40PObox.com[/email])<mailto:PaulBain%40PObox.com>
(703) 876-4778
http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbain
---------------------------------------------------
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Guest
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 4:28 am Post subject: Open source software (OSS) - The OSS-bashing must stop NOW! |
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|
I followed this topic with some interest. I use commercial software and also write my own code when useful. In the past, I've written some Perl to perform general email conversion including, but not limited to, the following:
(1) Convert EDRM XML to MIME
(2) Convert MIME to Concordance and Opticon (including image creation using PDF and/or TIFF)
(3) Convert Concordance to MIME
I've thought about cleaning up and open sourcing some of this code but didn't know how much interest there is in Perl from the lit support community, vs. say Oracle and VMware which use Perl quite a bit. Would there be interest in open sourcing some of this code?
Regards,
John Wang, CCP
ZL Technologies, Inc.
Web: http://www.zlti.com
Blog: http://grokify.com
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