🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <71781@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Gary Perlman <perlman@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>I think promoting LATeX in a writing class would direct student attention
>away from more important issues.  Finally, the support tools like spelling
>corrector and thesaurus, not to mention a variety of WWB-like tools on
>PC's and Macs designed to work with WP and Word, make TeX seem like an
>even poorer choice for educational purposes.  

Yes, but to discourage LaTeX's use is also a bad choice. It is becoming
increasingly common to do things like use a package like WordPerfect to
create the TeX or LaTeX input file (see the last issue of TUGboat for an
article about this) in a rather friendly manner with all of the advantages
of being able to type control-alt-shift-G to get a capital gamma (yeah, that's
a _big_ improvement of \Gamma), so the arguments about the spelling corrector
etc. don't really wash. Besides, I think that pushing spelling correctors can
be just as dangerous as pushing formatting languages (if not more so), since
there is a tendency for people with spelling checkers to never read their 
work (believe me, I've seen it on many an occasion). I find it very
annoying to read text that says things like "they never read there work".
I think the best course of action would probably be to inform the students
that something like LaTeX exists and at least give them a little background
information on it. The principles of structured document design are _not_
going to go away: SGML is an international standard, far more techincal 
journals except TeX/LaTeX/AmSTeX files than MS-Word files, the stuff is 
there, and it's becoming more and more common. Ignoring LaTeX (or related
systems) in a technical writing class would almost be like ignoring computers.

-dh
-- 
D.A. Hosek           | Internet: DHOSEK@HMCVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU
                     | Bitnet: DHOSEK@HMCVAX.BITNET
                     | Phone: 714-920-0655
(I used to be a Mudder, but I got better)