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Conservation of genius. Nice paper. Two columns. Why? In the 1980's computer science conferences like STOC and FOCS would hand out telephone-book sized proceed

Conservation of genius. Nice paper. Two columns. Why? In the 1980's computer science conferences like STOC and FOCS would hand out telephone-book sized proceedings, and it took two columns to squeeze it all in. Not relevant now, but the two columns make it that much harder to read on a tablet. I don't generally wish ill on anyone, but it's hard not to wish that the editors responsible for this idiotic convention would just die or retire in either order.

saurik 6y ago
If you had said "phone" I would have some sympathy, but "tablet"? Seriously? You act like two columns is somehow ridiculous, but magazines and newspapers also all use multiple columns. You only see single columns on narrow formats like handheld books (most paperbacks). A tablet is large enough to show an entirely page at once at a reasonable font size and you want two columns for that. If anything the technological restriction issue is that it was hard to make a two column typewriter so typed, instead of typeset, documents often have a humorously large single column. (Even on a phone it just isn't difficult enough to read that it deserves such hate.)
svat 6y ago
Consider using k2pdfopt or some such tool. Also, this paper is from ICFP 2002 whose proceedings were published in print form. Several libraries hold it: https://www.worldcat.org/title/proceedings-of-the-seventh-acm-sigplan-international-conference-on-functional-programming-icfp-02-pittsburgh-pennsylvania-usa-october-4-6-2002/oclc/51007669?referer=br&ht=edition https://www.worldcat.org/title/proceedings-of-the-seventh-ac... Anyway it appears that from 2017 onwards the ICFP proceedings are no longer published in print (they're published as part of PACMPL, an electronic journal), and indeed the ICFP 2020 papers for example (https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2020/4/ICFP https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2020/4/ICFP) are not in two columns anymore. So everything seems reasonable IMO.
gjvc 6y ago
Narrow columns are easier to mark up with a pen for editing and note-making purposes. On the other hand, I have often wondered why this convention was used so much, especially when some types of content would never reasonably fit into a single column (and people didn't want to float a graphic in there) What sort of tablet are you using in 2020 which doesn't have the pinch-to-zoom functionality? "two columns to squeeze it all in" Just use a single column and half the pages then...

saurik 6y ago

If you had said "phone" I would have some sympathy, but "tablet"? Seriously? You act like two columns is somehow ridiculous, but magazines and newspapers also all use multiple columns. You only see single columns on narrow formats like handheld books (most paperbacks). A tablet is large enough to show an entirely page at once at a reasonable font size and you want two columns for that. If anything the technological restriction issue is that it was hard to make a two column typewriter so typed, instead of typeset, documents often have a humorously large single column. (Even on a phone it just isn't difficult enough to read that it deserves such hate.)

svat 6y ago

Consider using k2pdfopt or some such tool. Also, this paper is from ICFP 2002 whose proceedings were published in print form. Several libraries hold it: https://www.worldcat.org/title/proceedings-of-the-seventh-acm-sigplan-international-conference-on-functional-programming-icfp-02-pittsburgh-pennsylvania-usa-october-4-6-2002/oclc/51007669?referer=br&ht=edition https://www.worldcat.org/title/proceedings-of-the-seventh-ac... Anyway it appears that from 2017 onwards the ICFP proceedings are no longer published in print (they're published as part of PACMPL, an electronic journal), and indeed the ICFP 2020 papers for example (https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2020/4/ICFP https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2020/4/ICFP) are not in two columns anymore. So everything seems reasonable IMO.

gjvc 6y ago

Narrow columns are easier to mark up with a pen for editing and note-making purposes. On the other hand, I have often wondered why this convention was used so much, especially when some types of content would never reasonably fit into a single column (and people didn't want to float a graphic in there) What sort of tablet are you using in 2020 which doesn't have the pinch-to-zoom functionality? "two columns to squeeze it all in" Just use a single column and half the pages then...