Article View: comp.lang.postscript
Article #5704Re: Who bakes the Best PostScript?
From: Ben Goren
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 20:19
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 20:19
25 lines
1848 bytes
1848 bytes
(Sorry I can't quote from the original article--this newsreader is somewhat primitive....) As far as the worst PostScript goes, I'd say that Finale (a music notation program for the Macintosh) has to win the prize hands down. I'd even go so far as to say that it's the worst programming I've ever seen, and I'm including my own feeble attemps at BASIC on an Apple II almost a decade ago. What makes PostScript "good"? I'd say that, first of all, it must conform to the DSC. Even hand-written code can do this quite nicely, and it gives a good structure to the program. Beyond that, my personal preference is for short, highly-tuned code that (hopefully) executes quickly. Rather than individually draw a hundred squares of varying shades of gray on the page, as in a color calibration sheet, I'd try to get the whole thing in a single line with a couple of for loops. I generally don't like to see things repeated in any computer language. If you can type out the same line, with minor modifications, a dozen times to get what you want, the computer can probably do the same thing, but quicker, if you just have it loop. Most machines now have some sort of instruction or data cache that make such things highly efficient. Of course, all this must be balanced with the realities of the situation. If I needed to get something done in the next five minutes, I'd probably use cut-and-paste, and figure the extra interpretation time is worth it.
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<92322.131958AUBXG@ASUACAD.BITNET>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!ukma!wupost!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!asuacad!aubxgReferences:
<1992Nov12.153918.12371@usiva.com>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!ukma!wupost!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!asuacad!aubxg Organization: Arizona State University Date: Tuesday, 17 Nov 1992 13:19:58 MST From: Ben Goren <AUBXG@ASUACAD.BITNET> Message-ID: <92322.131958AUBXG@ASUACAD.BITNET> Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript Subject: Re: Who bakes the Best PostScript? References: <1992Nov12.153918.12371@usiva.com> Lines: 25