🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <246@dino.cs.iastate.edu>, shaver@cs.iastate.edu (Dave Shaver)
writes:
> The red, blue, and (to a degree) green books don't really tell you what
> it's like to write PostScript "in the real world." "Real World
> Postscript" edited by Stephen Roth is the only book I've found so far
> that gives any real inside peeks into "real life."

"Inside PostScript" by one of the engineers at QMS is good too.

> Then again, I'm just a novice PostScript hacker, so you wizards can
> feel free to tromp on this posting... 8-)

Oh, you're much less annoying than Woody... :-).

I do admit that I don't spend much time trying to eke the most out of 300dpi
the way Don Lanacaster and Woody seem to, and that probably biases me.  When
I think of "real world" issues I think of things like:

 - Managing font downloads so as not to run out of VM in a LaserWriter
 - Finding good halftone frequencies and angles at 2540 dpi for doing
   color seps on a Linotron at >120 lpi
 - Finding the most effective compromises between doing computation in the
   printer and on the host for a particular job

In part because of these and similar issues, I tend to think of a LaserWriter
as a previewer for a typesetter, not as the ultimate in 300dpi printing.
I want any PostScript that I write to work just as well on an L300 or a
QMS ColorScript as it does on the LaserWriter downstairs.  If it doesn't,
I've goofed.

The Red Book is sort of like Inside Macintosh--it's great if you already
know what you're looking for.  I admit that there's a lack of many good
intermediate material on PostScript (although both "Real World PostScript"
and the Green Book are very good), and that this can be a stumbling block.
On good days, even Don's columns are good--he's certainly clever, and isn't
afraid to get his readers' hands dirty... :-).  His first set of columns
about the halftone mechanism and how to trade better resolution against
fewer gray levels was excellent, for example.  His tirades against
AppleTalk and Adobe, though, do get boring after the first couple of years...

Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation
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