🚀 go-pugleaf

>From LAWS@SRI-AI Mon Jul 12 00:12:28 1982
I used XED for a short time, and was not particularly happy with
its use of invisible formatting commands.  (I suspect that the problem
was in my lack of adaptation to the system.)  I think such an editor
requires more than a 22-line ASCII display.

If the display can't give me "what you see is what you get", or if
the document is to be formatted differently on different output
devices, I occasionally want to be able to see and edit the formatting
commands along with the text.  This implies that

  * The formatting commands should be in ASCII, at least during
    the editing process.

  * The commands should be symbolic macros (as in SCRIBE) rather
    than low-level phototypesetter commands (as in TROFF).  The
    macro expansion can then be made device-dependent.

  * The commands should be in-line rather than breaking text so
    that the command flag character is on column 1.  In-line
    commands (e.g., @italics(foobar)) are much easier to read
    and to imagine in the formatted form.

  * The formatting commands must themselves form a coherent system.

In short, the editor should be fully integrated with a symbolic
formatting system such as SCRIBE or TEX.  There should be a simple
mapping between commands entered with a keystroke or lightpen and
those entered as ASCII text.

					-- Ken Laws
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