🚀 go-pugleaf

    The recent ruckus about the docs for FORM program has brought to 
light a lot of misconceptions about TeX.  I personally view *.TeX 
files as a preferred form of documentations for the following 
reasons:



1). They can be read with any ASCII text editor.



2). They are the ONLY method that an Atari ST user has available to 
typseset mathematics.



3). The structure of a TeX document as described by the relationships 
of its parts with one another is rigorously defined.



4). The output on an SLM804 laser printer is simply beautiful.



4). It is the only package on the ST that is capable of printing 
documents of any significant length without stopping for anything but 
reloading paper.



5). They can be output on a wide variety of other engines if the user 
does not have the requisite tools at his/her Atari workstation



No other combination of desktop publishing and word processing 
software for the ST can make a similar claim.



I must, however, agree with those who feel that Jos. Vermasern should 
have distributed the .TEX file rather than the .DVI file.  Mr 
Vermasern's comment on this matter indicates that he somehow allowed 
himself to get dragged into some situations that represent poor 
publishing practice, whether done with TeX, Publisher ST, or Calamus.



I think it would be desirable to encourage further publication of 
documentation in TeX form.  Simon Poole's Uniterm manual was an 
excellent example of what can be achieved this way.  In doing so, 
however, the authors should think of the following guidelines:



a). Keep it simple.  Don't use any more special constructs than you 
have to.  If you need to modify the basic LaTeX constructs do so 
sparingly.



b). Always provide the TeX source so that users can, when necessary, 
adapt the manuscript to the limitations of their environments.  Paper 
size is one trivial example.  Type fonts are another.



I have printed out several documents that I obtained from local 
mathematicians to test the TeX implementation being distributed by 
Current Notes.  I have found that sticking to the above prescriptions 
results in something that is really no more difficult to use than ARC 
or ZOO.  With this implementation of TeX the Atari ST can hold its 
head high in some very sophisticated company.



People who squawk about the amount of disk space required by TeX 
should realize that it is not really any worse than that tied up by 
Ultrascript and it is not too much worse than what you have to go 
through to bring up Publisher ST.