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From: mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)
Subject: Re: AWEB; Enhanced Document Encoding
Date: 1999/03/21
Message-ID: <7d3860$gdu$1@news.interlog.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 457759350
References: <7cooqo$mdf$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <36f04969.0@pfaff.ethz.ch>
 <36f1dd17.0@pfaff.ethz.ch>
Organization: MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA
NNTP-Posting-Time: 21 Mar 1999 16:53:20 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.programming.literate
Date: 1999-03-21T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

> ... which (presumably) proves TeX is better than Word at formulae
> ... Word, I suspect, is better than TeX at a great many things
> ... Experiment (hypothetical). Seat a ... secretary in front 
> of a computer with ... LaTeX ... 
  doing complex formulae...
> the secretary resigns in tears.

Since I have done this experiment on numerous papers, theses, 
computer programs, and charts, I would like to point out from
my experience that the secretary will resign in Word quicker
than in LaTex, and that less training is needed to do tables of
formulas in LaTex than in Word. However, in either language,
it takes a certain kind of desire to do technical typing,
and I often wind up doing the typing myself. 

You are right, though, that a secretary can do a letter faster
in Word than in LaTex, but just imagine which the world would be
better without: letters or technical documents.

I have some Ada programs that use LaTex as the output language,
and it would be quite difficult to generate Word output. Even
using Microsoft Components, the format of the RTF (rich text
file) transfer file underneath the Microsoft Word format,
changes as the operating systems evolve.