🚀 go-pugleaf

It is evident to me that in ten years systems like troff & teX will
be historical vapor.  Clearly, in ten years ascii terminals will no
longer exist (already the cost savings doesn't justify them), and the
primitive glass-TTY software will cease to exist, just like primitive
line editors ceased to exist when teletypes went the way of the dodo
bird.

However, we are living in the present, and presently I would say the
best, most portable, most up-and-coming document preparation system
has to be TeX (& LaTeX).  If you want to write a book, if you want to
write good math, if you want to have the best aesthetic output, then
go with TeX.  Troff is a direct descendent of perhaps THE FIRST word
processor (runoff, 1966?), and frankly, it shows it age (through many
bugs, phototypesetter dependencies, and through the primitive
functionality and excessively painful syntax of pic).


Sometime in the future, you should consider a WYSWYG system, but
high-precision software hasn't been written for PC's.  I use a
macintosh & MS-Word 4.0.  Word is still not smart enough to fully
justify my mathematics & italics on a laser-printed line (with
fractional widths).  This is bad news.  But I like the WYSWYG, and
can't beat the *cheap* macintosh illustration tools (Canvas, MacDraw,
MacDraw II, MacPaint) -- and don't even need the sophisticated ones
(illustrater, freehand, etc).  MS-Word equations work, and are
readable, and if I don't like them, I've only myself to blame, since
the mac can intermingle editable output in a way that is impossible
with TeX, troff, or any other system.  If you don't like the way your
software displays (figures, equations, graphs, tables, etc), just get
an add-on package, create the info separately and paste it into your
document.  Your word processor only has to do a good job on text.

Some misconceptions have been floating around:
1.  WYSWYG = no good for large documents (look at latest packages)
2.  WYSWYG = distraction 		 (the clock is a distraction)
3.  WYSWYG = assembly, troff/TeX = compiler (1% of users are programmers)

By the way, the mac has a nice public-domain program (LAgraphix) that
lets you edit TeX pictures in WYSWYG form (someone asked about this).

Don W. Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies