Tag Archives: SSIS

Ghetto Text Editing

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I realised yesterday that one factor consistently ignored in the old vi/emacs/butterflies debate…is how “ghetto” the method of text editing is, i.e. how degenerate given the available tools. Old terminal-based editors can seem quite ghetto compared to modern GUI-based ones, but after thinking about it you can do a whole lot better.

There are many favourites of mine in the ghetto text editing category:

  • Write your text in a title for a component in SSIS, switch to code view and copy your text out.
  • Write your own text editor.
  • Write your own text editor in machine code, with another text editor.
  • If you are using a GUI designer for your own text editor, preload the text field with the text you are writing and then copy it out from the backend code.
  • Write a LaTeX document with your text, typeset it to a PDF, open the results and copy your text out.
  • Use Word…ugh, very ghetto.
  • Write a Word macro that generates your text into a WordArt instance.
  • Find the minimum-order polynomial function which produces desired ASCII values given values in some countable set.
  • Write your text in the frequency domain. Record the Fourier transform or number-theoretic transform of your text.
  • Factor your text into primes.
  • Create your own font, where the entire text is rendered with a single codepoint.
  • When it comes time to print your text document, order something online and copy the text to the description field of the order form—then it will appear on the attached invoice.
  • Or, have your name changed, then your text will appear in the electoral roll.

I’m quite certain you can think up some more…

Clarification

2 Replies
  1. I did not attend the Hutchins school.
  2. I did not attend the Hutchins school.
  3. Cocoa programming makes me feel heaps more enlightened than .NET programming. Bindings & Core Data, need I say more?
  4. I have no trouble holding bars of SOAP soap for a prolonged period of time.
  5. Somebody should recommend me a good recipe for gravy.
  6. There is no clarification #6.
  7. I did not (and I would actually know this for a fact) attend the Hutchins school.
  8. 8 is a lucky number because it is between 7 and 9, which are also lucky.
  9. SSIS 2005 packages may not deploy correctly due to the msxml3 & msxml6 DLLs not being registered with COM correctly on the current machine.
  10. “Fish-shaped solid waste“… The cake, if not a downright fraud, is totally inedible anyway.
  11. A surprising amount of information not directly exposed by the Infopath 2007 Forms Services API can be obtained, e.g. HttpContext.Current.
  12. The Deus Ex theme goes A minor, then E major.
  13. My colleague Ben is omnipresent (at least in whatever Glenn is currently messing with).
  14. Whether we are the next multimillionaires or not is pure speculation.
  15. Active Directory is a bizzare perversion of a database.
  16. Cauchy distribution for teh win. In your face, central limit theorem.
  17. I need to get back to work.