🚀 go-pugleaf

woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes:
> [Dick Dunn] is quite wrong
> in some assumptions.  First, PS is a GENERAL PURPOSE programming language
> with an imaging model as it's base.  It is everybit as potent and powerful
> as anything you can stack it up against,...[etc.]

What wrong assumptions have I made?  I said that PostScript is Turing-
equivalent - that's about as strong a statement as you need to make about
the (theoretical) power or generality.  It's a general-purpose language in
a sense, yet it's intended for a specific purpose (or set of purposes) -
there are things it's good for and that's what it's used for.

Show me some wrong assumptions.  Convince me that, say, more than 2% of
PostScript usage is for anything unrelated to imaging.

>  ...The decision to cripple the printer by going to 7 bit ascii
> (who uses that?  That disappeared with OCTAL for crying outloud!)...

Somebody here leads a very sheltered existence.

As for the business-card program - you're only doing "play" cards if you're
doing them on a 300 dpi printer, so let's keep that in mind.  (I've done
that too in a pinch; it's not a bad idea but you need a little
perspective.)  I don't know why you want to get really fancy or
complicated when you're at the lower end of acceptable quality, but that's
your business.

> It takes a LOT of time, sometimes 20 min to image a real complex card...

I'd say you're doing something wrong...can't much tell what at this
distance, but that's an eternity.

OK, so if you want to find some hacks to speed that up, go ahead and find
them!  But just because you've found one situation where PostScript and
your particular printer won't do what you want, doesn't mean there's a
general language deficiency.  Take a broader view.

> It apparent that Dick never had an ounce of curiosity,...

Yer smokin' rope, kid.

I wasn't complaining about your curiosity.  I was complaining that you're
sitting around whining about Adobe not solving your little problems for
you.

>...nor grew up during
> the early 70's with microcomputers...

No, I had already grown up by then (to the extent it can be said that I've
ever grown up:-).  I was teaching by the time the 4004 was out.  I've got
lots of curiosity about how things work, and I've disassembled my share of
code--more often to find out *why* something *didn't* work than *how* it
*did* work, but that's neither here nor there.

>...I started programming micros back
> in 76, when a 256 BYTE machine was normal,...

256-byte machines were never normal.  (Not everything which has existed is
normal.)  We're digressing here, but we'll get back to it.

>...and no one knew what to  curiosity
> bumps...

Hmmm...well, I certainly didn't.

>...We dug through code to see how it was written, what it did, and
> how to wring the most possible out of both it and the machine...

And that, to some extent, was going on a long time before you started
programming, and still goes on today.  But it's a lot less "necessary" now
than back then.  F'heaven's sake, CPUs are commodity items, memory is under
$100/Mb (again, thankfully:-), disk is $5/Mb or so...it's time to get up
out of the muck and work at a higher level.

In fact, it's just the shift in costs that made PostScript a viable "mass
market" tool.  It does some very high-level stuff and it requires a lot of
computing power.  The world in which people - as individuals - can afford a
PostScript printer is one in which the intense bit-fiddling just isn't
necessary...and if it isn't necessary, it really isn't desirable.  (It can
be fun, sure, but I'm talking about getting work done.)

> "hacker" ... by the classic definition "one who knows more about a machine
> because he takes the time to explore it more throughly that 99% of the people
> out there".  The guru type hackers.  I am NOT an amature "hacker".  I am a
> classic "hacker".

If you want to pat yourself on the back that way, fine...I think there are
plenty of "classic hackers" like myself who will disagree with your assess-
ment of yourself.

> ...Perhaps I am a bit of a hacker,
> if some one tells me something is "off limits" etc, I'm going to find out
> why...

Fine, go ahead.  But the point is that "what you can find out by poking
around" is a lot different from "what's specified and guaranteed to work."
If you find something that seems to work for you, and you want to take your
chances, go ahead...but you don't need to whine about Adobe not handing it
to you on a platter.

> This discussion group is not a place for flames, or diatriabes or even 
> personal attacks.  So right now, I will say, that I have just violated that
> with the above paragraph, and I applogize for that...

Not really necessary; it wasn't that bad and the egg's on your face anyway.
But how could the apology be sincere?  It's in the same article as what
you're apologizing about...if you didn't want to say it you could have
deleted it.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...Mr. Natural says, "Use the right tool for the job."