in reply to 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

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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]

      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]

      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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