🚀 go-pugleaf

> In article <731@othervax.UUCP> ray@othervax.UUCP (Raymond D. Dunn) writes:
> >Tex, and the current UNIX tools for typeset text preparation, are
> >rapidly becoming dinosaurs - they probably have already become so.
> >Visible typography commands embedded in text, and separate H & J/page
> >makeup runs are passe
> 
In article <1861@glacier.ARPA>, reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes:
> BALONEY. There is a place in the world for WYSIWYG systems that do not use
> embedded commands, but there is a large class of documents that 
> cannot be done at all well with the kind of interactive system that you are
> talking about. Anything where the structure is as important as the content.
> Cookbooks like the @i[Joy of Cooking]. Encyclopedias. Airline schedules.
> Dictionaries. Reference manuals for computer software.

This would perhaps be more convincing had the author not written an embedded
command text formatting program.

From my limited experience dealing with "computer novices" in the graphic
arts -- who do not refer to us as "graphic-arts novices," though they could --
the latest and best professional typographic systems contain as many
WYSIWYG functions as the programmers can cram in.  These SPECIFICALLY include
the ability to box and columnarize text in tabular formats, as in cookbooks, 
encyclopedias, airline schedules, dictionaries, directories, etc.  The ability
to do ruled forms in a WYSIWYG manner is considered essential.

Incidentally, they do not call laser printer output "typeset material."  The
discernable resolution and poor kerning is still too crude, in their opinion.
To us computer types, used to crummy dot-matrix output, it looks great.  To
the professional typographer, the one with the 20X loupe magnifier in his
shirt pocket, it is simply amusing.

-- 
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather@astro.UTEXAS.EDU