From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,HEADER_SPAM, INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1032a1,1a91c683b7703121 X-Google-Attributes: gid1032a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,8f0e2b9422a6e2f2 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Nick Roberts" Subject: Re: AWEB; Enhanced Document Encoding Date: 1999/03/22 Message-ID: <36f5c8d3.0@pfaff.ethz.ch>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 457445026 References: <7bv5nl$8vc$1@plug.news.pipex.net> <7c5up1$gf7$1@news-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> <7c8tir$nt0$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <36ed4e1c.0@pfaff.ethz.ch> <7cooqo$mdf$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <36f04969.0@pfaff.ethz.ch> <36f1dd17.0@pfaff.ethz.ch> <36f29e53.0@pfaff.ethz.ch> X-Trace: 22 Mar 1999 05:36:35 +0100, gwaihir.ee.ethz.ch Organization: UUNET WorldCom server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNET WorldCom) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.programming.literate Originator: neeri@gwaihir.ee.ethz.ch Date: 1999-03-22T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Well, I think to quite a large extent Sven and I are arguing at cross purposes, and to quite a large extent I agree with what he is saying anyway. I also suspect, perhaps, he is not being deeply serious, and I am, after all, only throwing an idea into the wind! Forgive me for not requoting his post as appropriate, but I think the size of our articles could start getting a bit too big (does that sound funny? You know what I meant! :-). Again, I hope I'm forgiven for cross posting. Firstly: MS Word is clearly not the market leader through technical superiority alone. I don't think anyone's going to disagree with that! It's neat in some ways, and it's certainly 'feature-rich', but it sure has its problems. I wouldn't want to use it for any large work (for fear of it crashing or just being too slow); I might well use TeX for such a project, instead. The example I gave with the secretary was, of course, not a very serious one, and I agree with Sven on every point he makes about it (apart from the paperclip, which I find abominable ;-). He is particularly right about secretaries not knowing enough about maths to typeset formulae correctly (of course, some secretaries will, but I think the truth is most will not). (And as for Windows crashing: my Windows 95 PC crashed yesterday, losing me a large e-mail I was just about to send. It's a fairly regular occurrence. 'Nuff said.) The typesetting problems that Unicode solves are only a few; this was a very minor point. Sven points out that, for a lot of programming tools (e.g. sed, awk, perl, shells), outputting normal text will indeed be easier than numbered codes. He is, of course, quite right. I tend not to use such tools, so this was simply a case of biased thinking on my part. He also questions why outputting codes would be 'much easier' than outputting, say, LaTeX directives, and on reflection, I must admit, there would probably be no great difference between the two (in most programming languages, and an advantage to LaTeX in some languages). I think Sven must misunderstand my point about the control characters. Yes, you need them (and even then, not all) for old-style character communications, but you don't need them, except a few, for anything else. A text document file could certainly get away with using the control characters (or most of them) for other purposes. If you needed to communicate such a file somewhere, you'd send it as a binary file. No problem! (If you need to process it as plain text, you must put it through an appropriate filter; also not really a problem.) Finally, Sven confirms his hatred of all things WYSIWYG. Might projects such as LyX change his mind? I used to be pretty contemptuous myself of typical WYSIWYG word processors*, most of which were suitable only for letters and trivial documents, once. But I observe and listen to many other computer users in my job (roving consultant), and most of them love WYSIWYG, and the immediacy of typical GUIs. As a programmer, I feel I must bow to the needs of the majority. Also, I must admit, I like it a lot -- if I am trying to use a program I have never used before and will never use often -- when I can get the program to do what I want straight away by just pulling down a menu or two. (Of course, only the best 5% odd of GUI programs are this well designed, in reality; but the principle stands.) Anyway, what I am proposing is not to replace TeX, but to augment it (and maybe, one day long from now, supercede it), as a standard format for text documents. I'm not trying to take TeX away from anybody! ------------------------------------- Nick Roberts ------------------------------------- *apart from the wonderful WordStar [sheds a sad tear], way back when graphics screens were unknown, when WordStar was the only serious semi-WYSIWYG word processor for microcomputers, and the world worshipped at its feet. Whatever happened to WordStar? Why wasn't there an enquiry?