bzs@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (12/05/85)
I have used both WYSIWYG and batch style word processors of a few flavors. You all kinda miss the point, you are all kinda correct (in my opinion.) WYSIWYG is great for short, simple documents (very short, very simple). It is nearly useless for anything more than a few pages, and the uselessness seems to go up as the square of the size of the document. If I *had* to make a choice (why do these discussions always imply that I do?) I would certainly choose the TROFF style over WYSIWYG. Why? Because short simple documents are rarely the problem (hell, you can often get away with just setting it up in EMACS and putting a .nf, .na at the top and a font choice, maybe a few .sp's, but trivial.) On the other hand, with what I have seen I would hate to have to use a WYSIWYG for a long document. I think the best thing to do is to own both, thus keeping the WYSIWYG very simple and not be tempted to pump it full of features to help with long documents. It would also mean the investment in learning the WYSIWYG is minimal compared to the convenience. Now, if we would only start seeing 4K X 4K screens to match our 300dpi printers... -Barry Shein, Boston University
rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (12/06/85)
From Barry Shein: > WYSIWYG is great for short, simple documents (very short, very > simple). It is nearly useless for anything more than a few pages, and > the uselessness seems to go up as the square of the size of the > document. This doesn't help us at all. What is the source of the uselessness? (I don't find that it helps me if someone says "this is useless" but doesn't tell me why? At the least, I'd like to know if the perceived problem is remediable...) > ...with what I have seen I would hate to have to use a WYSIWYG for a long > document. WHY?!?! -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Are you making this up as you go along?
guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris) (12/07/85)
> WYSIWYG is great for short, simple documents (very short, very > simple). It is nearly useless for anything more than a few pages, and > the uselessness seems to go up as the square of the size of the > document. To use Brian Reid's phrase, BALONEY. I've used a WYSIWYG system for doing rather large documents, and it beat the living **** out of doing it with "nroff" (no, we were not doing it on fancy printers, just dumb-ass Spinwriters). > I think the best thing to do is to own both, thus keeping the WYSIWYG > very simple and not be tempted to pump it full of features to help > with long documents. It would also mean the investment in learning > the WYSIWYG is minimal compared to the convenience. No! If you're going to pump something full of features to help with long documents, pump a WYSIWYG system rather than an embedded-markup system, if you can. It may not be possible, but *ceteris paribus*, I'd rather have a WYSIWYG system. You've just been looking at the wrong WYSIWYG systems. Guy Harris
suze@terak.UUCP (Suzanne Barnett) (12/13/85)
> > WYSIWYG is great for short, simple documents (very short, very > > simple). It is nearly useless for anything more than a few pages, and > This doesn't help us at all. What is the source of the uselessness? Good point. > > ...with what I have seen I would hate to have to use a WYSIWYG for a long > > document. > > WHY?!?! Good point. I would expect that the complexity of the document, rather than its actual length could have more bearing on the usefulness of WYSIWYG, though processing time must be considered in a long document. There are three things I consider to be problems with WYSISYG systems. The first may, or may not be a problem, depending on the system. First, I want a very versitile text processor that gives me tools to do anything I desire. Typical word processors are extremely limited, they don't usually provide automatic tables of contents, table formatting, indices, sequencing, versatile headers & footers, etc. Some do some of these, but I have never seen one that did it all or was expandable (capability of adding macros, etc.). While WYSIWYG systems are generally far more advanced than typical word processors, they are often limited in these same types of areas. If the system itself doesn't provide a particular feature I want, I want it to allow me to create a macro, using its existing features, to do what I need. I would opt for a system that had fewer built in capabilities, but was expandable, to one that did quite a lot of things, but couldn't be expanded. Second, most word processors proooduce files that contain embedded control characters. This makes it difficult to transfer that file to another system, a task I often necessary. I expect that WYSIWYG systems also produce files with embedded control characters. If not, their processing time must be enormous. Third, the processing time. I prefer to work on a system that is NOT dedicated to an individual function. Or, at least is networked to other systems. If someone else has a draft file that contains information I need, I want to be able to transfer it rather than retyping the information. When I have it edited and formatted, I don't want to tie up the system so that no one else can get anything done. Using a text formatter, such as troff (or TEX or Scribe) I slow the system down for a shorter period of time that if I used an interactive WYSIWYG system. Also, I can schedule my troffing to occur at a time when the system load is low, without stopping work myself. -- Merry Christmas! Suzanne Barnett-Scott uucp: ...{decvax,ihnp4,noao,savax,seismo}!terak!suze CalComp/Sanders Display Products Division 14151 N 76th Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260 (602) 998-4800