Linked by Sean Cohen on Tue 13th Apr 2004 06:52 UTC
Today I'm going to talk about why software - any software, all software - actually matters, what the different types of software are, and why you should care about its properties (no matter who you are, or what you do).
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Me (Scientist): Dear journal X, please accept the attached manuscript for publication...
Journal X: Dr. Dyer, please send us a word format, we do not accept the XXX format.
Me (Scientist): Sure, you'll find the attached .doc format (from OpenOffice)
Journal X: Dr. Dyer, none of our MS Office applications can read your formulas.
Me (Scientist): Sure, please see the attached .doc format (from Office MacX)
Journal X: Dr. Dyer, your equations are fine, however, we can't see your images.
Me (Scientist): Do you accept LaTeX?
Journal X: Look pal, we're not into anything kinky here...
Me (Scientist): How about ps, pdf, dvi, rtf, ...
Journal X: Dr. Dyer, our reviewers typically use Office 2000, however out typesetters use something else and we sometimes have problems, that is why we are requiring Office XP.
Me (Scientist): Journal X, KMA. I'm spending more time trying to standardize on the so called "de facto" standard that it is eating into my research. I'm going to journal Y that takes LaTeX.