🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2650@trantor.harris-atd.com> chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) writes:
>In article <509@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US> root@mjbtn.MFEE.TN.US (Mark J. Bailey) writes:
>>Can anyone reading this give me an idea of the pros and cons of each 
>>approach to laser typesetting/publishing?  In particular where would
>>troff and/or TeX be better than Interleaf and where would it be worse
>>(other than its complexity)?...

This is a very subjective question, and one that I am sure has been debated
in this forum a great deal.  The answer is that there is no answer:  it
is a matter of taste, need, and individual circumstances.  This is like
asking what the pros and cons of different programming languages are (which
should I use:  C, Pascal, Lisp, or Prolog?)

Where TeX is concerned, don't consider TeX alone---also consider
LaTeX.  It is in most cases much easier to use than TeX.

>     You would be crazy to learn a non WYSIWYG package when you are just on the
>verge of getting a WYSIWYG package.  Troff and TeX are nothing more than arcane
>programming languages.

Of course, Chuck, there are those who would not agree with that.
But you knew that, didn't you?

>     People will contend that there are certain things you can't do in a
>WYSIWYG tool that you can in troff or TeX, but I don't know that that is
>true anymore.

It certainly doesn't need to be true, but I believe that it still is.

>TeX is excellent at equation typesetting,

No, TeX is UNSURPASSED at (automatic) equation typesetting.

>but the new
>equation editor from Frame is quite good and gives symbolic manipulation
>features to boot.

That's what Macsyma is for!  :-)

>...
>"big three" (Frame, InterLeaf, and Publisher) and give them a try.  Each
>has a certain niche, and you should try to find your niche before arbitrarily
>picking a tool.

troff and TeX have niches as well (yes, even troff has a little bit of
a niche) and should not be discounted merely because there is no WYSIWYG
interface for them.

		William LeFebvre
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil@eecs.nwu.edu>