Re: AWEB; Enhanced Document Encoding

[Sven Utcke <utcke@tu-harburg.de>]

"Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> writes:

> I have to agree that TeX -- to be completely blunt about it -- really creaks
> these days.  

Strange.  I usually refer to it as "TeX flys", especially when
comparing it to the 8086 4.77MHz I used to use it on.

> I think it would be fair to say that a lot of the assumptions that the
> design of TeX (and other 'formatting languages') were based on just don't
> apply any more: there is no such thing as batch processing; personal
> computers can reformat and redisplay even a moderate big and complex
> document in (near as dammit) real time; the vast majority of word processing
> users -- for whatever reasons, right or wrong -- won't tolerate having to
> learn a complex language (call it a 'formatting' language if you like, but
> it's effectively a programming language), and many now expect an interface
> which they can just use 'straight off'.  

Well, I'm mainly using TeX because it's ease of use and high-quality
output is still unsurpassed.  I have never yet lost one of these two
bets:
a) given any moderately complicated formula, I can create a printout
   of it (using LaTeX) faster than the other guy can using WinWord
   (even though I'm batch-processing, while he's WYSIAYG).
b) The typeset result produced by (La)TeX will look better (as in: ask
   10 people, see what the majority will opt for).

By the way, ktalk still offers the MathEdit challenge
(http://www.ktalk.com/challenge.html):

--- snip ---
We created a letter containing over 50 equations in less than 4 hours
using MathEdit and popular word processors. Can you recreate the
letter in less than 44 hours with the same typeset-level quality,
using just WordPerfect, Word, or AmiPro? Our challenge letter is
available in the following files
--- snip ---

I'm confident that with TeX it could have been done in less than 4
hours... 

> Besides which, TeX is a weird
> language, and some of its 'quirks' are just bizarre.

No denying that.

> Add to that the coming of Unicode, which effectively solves (in theory :-)
> quite a few of the problems formatting languages grappled with in
> the past,

I think we should not confuse formatting (what should it look like)
with _input_-encoding.  Two different things entirely.

> plus the fact that the reasons for having a plain-text source file format
> have now pretty well gone away, and it all makes traditional formatting
> languages look a bit obsolete.  

Hardly.  Using Emacs I can manipulate text in ways simply not possible
with a word-processor (one of the simplest examples being that in this
sentence I wrote word-processor only once, and wrote "Beispiel"
instead of example.  Emacs wrote the second and third word-processor
after I typed wo<shift><TAB>, and translated the German word Beispiel
into it's English equivalent.  Erik Naggum once reported that he got
functions to turn first person sentences into third person, or
statements into questions and vice versa.)  Emacs also reminded me to
close the parenthesis (bracket?) above...

And of course I can easily create (La)TeX from a program, so if I'm
making 100 tests on something all I need to do is write a batch-file
(see!) and go home, and the next morning I've got I typeset tabular
plus graph of my measurements (using gnuplot).

> However, there is, now more than ever, a need for a truly standard
> 'enhanced' document format, that would provide for the standard encoding of
> a document's 'logical' structure (paragraphs, headings, list items,
> (floating) table rows and columns, etc.).  

This sound pretty much like a description of LaTeX, which somehow
makes me doubt that:

> (The fine details of the
> implementation of that structure would, of necessity, be non-standard.)

After all, LaTeX is pretty standard indeed...

> I think it would be incumbent on such a standard to have a reasonably
> efficient coding (for typical use), and I reckon it should be based on
> Unicode or ISO 10646 (regardless of actual character encoding).  It could
> take the opportunity to clear up the ambiguity surrounding the use of CR and
> LF (and SUB at the end), 

This would indeed be most welcome, I guess.

> and redefine a lot of presently useless or
> ambiguous control characters (BS, HT, LF, VT, FF, CR, ESC, DEL, and maybe
> others) for useful purposes.

Why?  It's not as if they really got any place in a decent text-file
anyway...

Not that I know what all this has to do with litprog, never mind Ada...

Sven, who rather likes LaTeX and plain ASCII.
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