reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (12/15/85)
In this argument I claim these things:
(1) Troff is the most powerful formatting language, because it is the
only one of the three mentioned that can compute generalized functions
of the image state. Neither TeX nor Scribe can examine the image state.
(2) I can't offhand see why that is a big deal.
(3) I consider that the very best feature of Scribe is that nobody is able
to make it process TeX-like input. The whole point of Scribe is that
it enforces a certain amount of rigor and discipline on the preparation
of documents. If I had wanted to program a turing-complete system that
could emulate somebody else's formatter, I would have done so.
(4) Arguments that the ugliness of published documents are not the fault of
the text formatter are somewhat analogous to arguments that handguns
don't kill people, rather people kill people. My stand on text formatters
is the same as my stand on handguns: I don't want the average guy in the
street to be carrying a gun, and I don't want the average hack at a
word processing terminal to be using a text formatter that will let him
have any control whatsoever over the appearance of the finished document.
Stanley Morison, the eminent British typographer and Cambridge University
Press author, wrote that the purpose of typesetting is to be invisible, and that
if the reader even notices the typesetting of a book then the typesetting has
failed. Most modern psychology researchers who have studied legibility of
typewritten material (Burt [1959], Tinker [1963], Zachrisson [1965]) report
that people find most legible that with which they are most familiar. Everyone
finds his own newspaper to be much more readable than the New York Times
(unless his own newspaper IS the NYT). Everyone finds his own handwriting
legible. Everyone learns to like the fonts on his own laser printer. This
suggests that we should all just pick some standard, however ugly, and all
use it, because if we all use it then we will all be able to read each other's
material more easily. Anyone game?
--
Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid
Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPAnather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (12/16/85)
In article <2455@glacier.ARPA>, reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes: > [...] I don't want the average hack at a > word processing terminal to be using a text formatter that will let him > have any control whatsoever over the appearance of the finished document. > Thank you, Brian. You have put our basic difference of opinion very clearly, far more clearly than I could ever have done. I'm not sure I qualify as "...the average hack at a word processing terminal ..." but I certainly *do* want to have control over the appearance of my finished document, which you have very successfully prevented me from doing with Scribe. That's why I will never use it again. -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather@astro.UTEXAS.EDU