🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <JWZ.91Apr25151652@thalidomide.lucid.com> jwz@lucid.com (Jamie Zawinski) writes:
>In article <9737@cg-atla.UUCP> bradlee@cg-atla.UUCP (Rob Bradlee) wrote:
>> 
>> I'd just like to cast a vote in favor of this error handler.  I've used
>> it for the past year developing several PostScript procsets and it has
>> been invaluable.  
>
>By far the best way to debug PostScript is with GhostScript or another
>on-screen interpreter.  Though it's nice that PS gives you the ability
>to get real error messages out of a piece of printer hardware, that's an
>incredibly wasteful way to go about it, in terms of both time and trees.
>(On my Sparc2, GS is about 70 times faster than a laserwriter...)
>
>Since GhostScript is free and runs under X11, SunView, and MS-DOS, you
>really don't have *any* excuse for killing all of those trees...
>

I should have made my vote clearer.  Yes, a screen interpreter is the
easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to find bugs and we use Xnews and 
Ghostscript for that purpose.  HOWEVER, we are writing software to
drive film recorders (typesetters).    Some things work in Xnews, but
not on the typesetters.   Conversely, some things fail in Xnews that
work on the the typesetter. Also, there are some commands unique to
the typesetter that can only be tested on the box itself.  So..., it's
very handy to have something that prints out a message in the exact
environment that you're coding for.   
	Finally, as for the killing trees problem,  we only use the
error handler when the PS is failing and not getting to showpage.  We
can hook up an ascii terminal to the serial line (PS is sent down via
centronics or ethernet) and the errors come up on the screen not out
on the paper (film).

					Rob

-- 
Rob Bradlee  w:(508)-658-5600 X5153  h:(617)-944-5595
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