[Tutor] Interacting with stderr

Cameron Simpson cs at zip.com.au
Sat Aug 30 01:35:54 CEST 2014


On 29Aug2014 18:31, Crush <crushed26 at gmail.com> wrote:
>Ok so no links to dropbox? Man im confused...i thought links to dropbox were ok?

That was my fault. I said:

   If your screenshot is inherently graphical, publish it elsewhere
   (eg save it to Dropbox and get a "public link") and mention the
   link in your post, with some textual description.

But unless you're showing us some drawing, this is usually not desirable. In 
your case, the screenshot is (apparently) of some code, and it is far better to 
just include the code in your post, as text.

There are many advantages to text, including:

   It is MUCH MUCH smaller. (Applies to screenshot attachments, too.)

   It keeps the text with the message.

   Further, because it is in the message, it keeps the text in the mail 
   archives, where it may be searche fdor. Again, because it is in the message, 
   it _stays_ in the archives. Your dropbox link might go away at any time in 
   the future.

   Being text, part of the message, it is presented in _my_ preferred font. This 
   is just nicer, and for some people with sight issues, very important. I once 
   had a student who needed to get up very close to the screen, _and_ use a 
   magnifying glass. Forcing him to fetch a screenshot would not be nice.

   It arrives in the message, not requiring a separate act to fetch it (versus a 
   Dropbox link). For example, your message arrives and I have to open a web 
   browser to go and get your screenshot. Suppose I'm offline. This is 
   realistic: my laptop fetches my email in the background all the time, but I 
   visit the "python" folder at ad hoc times. If I'm on a long train trip, that 
   is an ideal time to catch up on mailing lists. I can read because the 
   messages were fetched earlier. I can reply, because my laptop has a mail 
   system which will queue messages and send when I'm online again. But I 
   _can't_ go and get your URL, because I'm offline.

Please use inline plain text when you can. It helps everyone.

>Wow i feel like such an idiot haha. I should have caught that capitolization error!

No worries.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au>

The impossible we understand right away - the obvious takes a little longer.


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