On Mon, 28 Jul 2025 13:48:34 -0500 Richard Owlett <rowl...@access.net> wrote:
> On 7/28/25 1:26 PM, Joe wrote: > > On Mon, 28 Jul 2025 14:39:21 -0000 (UTC) > > Greg <curtys...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> On 2025-07-27, Anders Andersson <pipat...@gmail.com> wrote: > >>> > >>> The Debian user mailing list is one of the worse examples in my > >>> (limited) experience. Every question gets non-answered by a bunch > >>> of people who don't really know about your exact situation, but > >>> think they have some valuable input. Often the same bunch of > >>> people who then ends up talking to each other. Comparing with for > >>> example the OpenBSD user mailing list is like night and day. > >>> > >> > >> This, precisely. They are only talking to themselves, as I have > >> noted previously (maybe Max N., who seems interested in this kind > >> of foolishness, can verify the date stamps). Every question is > >> non-answered by an intimate clan of aging men with toxic attitudes > >> and enormous anal-retention, who believe everyone should be using > >> mutt or gnus like them and don't know or give a shit about anything > >> else. > >> > >> It's really time for a change here. > >> > > > > So possibly it's time for someone to come up with a few pennies to > > pay someone really knowledgeable, such as a couple of Debian > > developers, to sit in here now and then to give precise answers (to > > precise questions, of course). > > > > You seem to be missing the points that nobody here is getting paid, > > and of course the topic of this thread implies that the questions > > asked are not always well-formed. Quite simply, if the question is > > precise and to the point, then a search engine will probably > > produce the correct answer, and do so fairly quickly. > > > > Mr Owlett has just asked another question, about spreadsheets. Would > > you say that his question was precise and to the point, and that it > > has a single, precise and definite answer? Did *you* give him this > > correct answer, and if not, why not? You presumably are the exact > > opposite of the kind of person you describe, so you must be ideally > > suited to doing a better job than we can. > > > > He hasn't yet explained in detail exactly what he wishes to do with > > this data. > > Have a grocery list based on a balanced diet to reduce likelihood of > more cardiac bypasses. > > > What if what he wants to do is insanely difficult in a > > spreadsheet, and could be done much more simply with a database. > > Output as a spreadsheet would have been one of the possible outcomes > of editing the PDF. But I later discovered the spreadsheet that the > PDF had been based on ;} > > > > Are we > > allowed to point this out, or does he have to find out for himself > > the hard way? > > > > I'm quite comfortable with both spreadsheets and databases. OK, most people 'don't do' databases. > IIRC there is a Linux version of TECO. Back in 70's when working at > DEC I was surrounded by TECO fanatics showing what it could do. I > learned to do some simple stuff with it. Now that I'm retired it > could be fun. > Most of my home applications run on apache2/php/mariadb, but there was a time in the distant past when I made a bank balance tracker/predictor with a spreadsheet. The regular stuff was easy, but I had a list of cheques (remember them?) and expected debit dates, and poking those into what was effectively a year planner was extremely messy using spreadsheet functions, lookups and so on. I resorted to Visual Basic for Applications. Somewhat later, I encountered Access, and did a much better job much more quickly. -- Joe
