🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <E5f$a51@cs.psu.edu>, melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger)
 writes:
> What advantages are there in learning troff or Tex?  Aren't their days
> numbered?  Everyone in the non-Unix world is using word processors.
> Why aren't Unix people?  I read in a book about Unix(that black
> paperback book from Byte) that the major disadvantage in using a word
> processor was that it couldn't handle large documents.  It seems to me
> that this limitation has been overcome.

I `sold' my company on using LaTeX for documentation.  We've been happy with
it for about two years now.  We keep looking at Word Perfect, et al, and
rejecting it/them.  Reasons:

1.  "Large documents" means not just many pages but also complex structure. 
Chapters, sections, subsections, figures, tables, listings, examples, 
TOC, TOF, TOT, TO*, indexes, bibliographies, footnotes, and cross references
between all of the preceding... Word Perfect (WP) can do *some* of what LaTeX 
can do with this stuff.  Not nearly all.  

2.  TeX input files are plain old Ascii text files.  As such they can be
prepared on any machine in the company, even if that machine does not run
TeX.  Under VMS, the Language Sensitive Editor is a great way to use LaTeX;
the templates `know' most of the commonly-used structures.  For another
example, until very recently we were still doing contract work
on HP 1000 series equipment.  The programmers did the first and second 
cuts at their documents on the machine they were familiar with, using the
text editor they were familiar with.  (I wouldn't wish that editor on anybody,
but one can get used to almost anything and once you're used to one, switching
frequently between it and another editor is a  real productivity-killer.)
Eventually, of course, the stuff got shipped over to the Tech Pubs group, 
who use TexTures on Macs.  Which brings me to...

3.  TeX is non-proprietary and runs *compatibly* under more operating systems 
than any proprietary word processor I know of.  Yes, I know, WP runs under
MS-DOS, VMS, Macintosh, and (I believe) various flavors of Unix... but did
you know it isn't quite compatible?  That the MS-DOS version has features
that others don't?  (At least so I am told by the Tech Pubs people, who have
been researching alternatives.)  So, even if you can get your WP files from
one machine to another without munging the format, you can't guarantee that
you'll get the same output everywhere.  This is not a problem with TeX.   

4.  The "plain Ascii" nature of TeX input has other advantages.  For example,
it can be generated by other programs.  In one document we needed to describe
the Ascii/EBCDIC translation provided by one of our packages.  Since the 
translation table was already in the code, nobody wanted to transcribe it
into the document format (and track revisions, etc.).  It took about half 
an hour to write a little program to take the table in "C" code and emit
a file that could be \input within a LaTeX \tabular environment, so that
the document will ALWAYS reflect what the code says.  You can play similar
games with VMS HELP and LaTeX documents, too.  

5.  Since TeX is just a program like any other it "plays well" with other
programs... like configuration management (CMS under VMS, rcs/sccs/etc. under
Unix) and build utilities (MMS, make).  In the above example, for instance, a
makefile guarantees that when the code changes the doc gets updated to match.

I could go on.  However, this subject, like text editors, is like a religion.
If you aren't convinced now you probably won't ever be.  

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Chair, VMSnet [DECUS uucp] and Internals Working Groups, DECUS VAX Systems SIG 
-------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------
Internet:  jeh@simpact.com,	     | Future shock:  A sense of bewilderment
 or if that fails, jeh@crash.cts.com | felt by those who were not paying
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