From: Mike Harrison <mph@zdenka.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: AWEB; Enhanced Document Encoding
Date: 1999/03/17
Date: 1999-03-17T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <YFlIjAAGuA82EwCt@zdenka.demon.co.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7cooqo$mdf$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
In article <7cooqo$mdf$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, Nick Roberts
<Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com> writes
.
'snip'
>
>I have to agree that TeX -- to be completely blunt about it -- really creaks
>these days. It was designed at a time when even really big computers
>(mainframes) had only a few MB of memory, and were generally batch-mode.
>Nowadays, even cheapo PCs have 64MB as a minimum (seems bizarre to us old
>hackers, but that's progress).
>
>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'. Besides which, TeX is a weird
>language, and some of its 'quirks' are just bizarre.
>
...
>
>-------------------------------------
>Nick Roberts
>-------------------------------------
>
OK, I know this is miles 'off-topic', but:
I still use TeX (or rather LaTeX - which is a little less quirky!) for
letters and serious technical papers, because I just prefer the look and
feel - especially the Computer Modern Roman typeface and because it's
easier to format maths text etc.
I learned to use it many years ago at Inmos, who used it for all tech
documents (including books published by commercial publishers).
Also, I remember when you were lucky to have 16K of memory on a
mainframe ... (memories of living in a shoebox come to mind ;-) ).
------------------------------------------------------------------
(mapcar 'standard_disclaimers (my_opinions))
Change 'devil' to 'demon' for my real email address.
Mike H.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1999-03-17 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1999-03-08 0:00 Looking for AWEB Nick Roberts
1999-03-10 0:00 ` Georg Bauhaus
1999-03-11 0:00 ` Looking for AWEB; TeX in Ada? Nick Roberts
1999-03-12 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-03-12 0:00 ` Sven Utcke
1999-03-15 0:00 ` Niklas Holsti
1999-03-15 0:00 ` Niklas Holsti
[not found] ` <7cooqo$mdf$1@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
1999-03-17 0:00 ` Mike Harrison [this message]
1999-03-17 0:00 ` AWEB; Enhanced Document Encoding Michael F Brenner
1999-03-18 0:00 ` Sven Utcke
1999-03-19 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-03-19 0:00 ` Sven Utcke
1999-03-22 0:00 ` Simon Wright
1999-03-22 0:00 ` Nick Roberts
1999-03-22 0:00 ` Sven Utcke
1999-03-23 0:00 ` Sven Utcke
1999-04-10 0:00 ` Patrick Mérissert-Coffinières
1999-04-13 0:00 ` Martin Kew
1999-04-13 0:00 ` nospam!bob
1999-03-21 0:00 ` Michael F Brenner
1999-03-19 0:00 ` Laurent Gasser (CSCS)
1999-03-25 0:00 ` FREDERICK LONG
1999-03-17 0:00 ` Looking for AWEB; TeX in Ada? Laurent Gasser (CSCS)
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