Re: State of the art of PDFs in Perl

While this may be of no use, your statement, "The field is littered with the corpses of CPAN modules ...", struck a chord. A couple of years ago I was tasked with creating a pure Perl solution for creating PDF documents from scratch. After hacking my way through a graveyard of undead (much as you appear to have done) I found PDF::API2::Simple. I managed to achieve my goal with this module.

The documentation for this module starts off with a claim by the author that he has telepathic powers: "Take note that PDF coordinates are not quite what you're used to.". He then goes on the explain the Cartesian Co-ordinate system with jaw-dropping incredulity.

-- Ken

Comment on Re: State of the art of PDFs in Perl

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Re^2: State of the art of PDFs in Perl by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Oct 28, 2012 at 07:19 UTC
Does this really read as "jaw-dropping incredulity" to you: Take note that PDF coordinates are not quite what you're used to. The coordinate, (0, 0) for instance is at the lower-left hand corner. Thus, x still grows to the right, but y grows towards the top. To me, it reads like a short, simple, head's up that just might save a few people from tearing their hair out. With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday' Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. RIP Neil Armstrong	[reply]
Re^3: State of the art of PDFs in Perl by kcott (Archbishop) on Oct 28, 2012 at 08:29 UTC
Gosh! My comments have elicited far more response than I anticipated. :-) I did get the sense that the message being conveyed was: Hey, this is really weird but true - believe it or not, it does this ... Being told by the author what I was used to, certainly rubbed me up the wrong way; so, I've considered whether that coloured how I read the remainder of the line. Having revisited the text, I can't say that my opinion has been swayed. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. In closing, I might just point out that I was not denigrating the module as a whole: I did say that I used it to successfully complete the task. My comments (in the second paragraph) only refer to one line in the documentation. -- Ken	[reply]
Re^2: State of the art of PDFs in Perl by Anonymous Monk on Oct 27, 2012 at 20:49 UTC
He then goes on the explain the Cartesian Co-ordinate system with jaw-dropping incredulity. With all due respect, cartesian is kinda rare in computers, 95% of GUI toolkits deal with screen coordinates, where 0,0 is top left corner	[reply]
Re^3: State of the art of PDFs in Perl by kcott (Archbishop) on Oct 28, 2012 at 06:58 UTC
My post was intended to be somewhat light-hearted with references to corpses, graveyards and undead. My main bone of contention (in the second paragraph) was with the author stating what the reader was used to: the author is in no position to make such a claim and, frankly, anyone who's ever seen a graph of sales/growth/whatever over time will be familiar with the general principle of Cartesian coordinates (even if they don't know that's what they're called). I have no disagreement with your comment about GUI toolkits. -- Ken	[reply]


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