JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV (12/08/89)
The recent ruckus about the docs for FORM program has brought to light a lot of misconceptions about TeX. I personally view *.TeX files as a preferred form of documentations for the following reasons: 1). They can be read with any ASCII text editor. 2). They are the ONLY method that an Atari ST user has available to typseset mathematics. 3). The structure of a TeX document as described by the relationships of its parts with one another is rigorously defined. 4). The output on an SLM804 laser printer is simply beautiful. 4). It is the only package on the ST that is capable of printing documents of any significant length without stopping for anything but reloading paper. 5). They can be output on a wide variety of other engines if the user does not have the requisite tools at his/her Atari workstation No other combination of desktop publishing and word processing software for the ST can make a similar claim. I must, however, agree with those who feel that Jos. Vermasern should have distributed the .TEX file rather than the .DVI file. Mr Vermasern's comment on this matter indicates that he somehow allowed himself to get dragged into some situations that represent poor publishing practice, whether done with TeX, Publisher ST, or Calamus. I think it would be desirable to encourage further publication of documentation in TeX form. Simon Poole's Uniterm manual was an excellent example of what can be achieved this way. In doing so, however, the authors should think of the following guidelines: a). Keep it simple. Don't use any more special constructs than you have to. If you need to modify the basic LaTeX constructs do so sparingly. b). Always provide the TeX source so that users can, when necessary, adapt the manuscript to the limitations of their environments. Paper size is one trivial example. Type fonts are another. I have printed out several documents that I obtained from local mathematicians to test the TeX implementation being distributed by Current Notes. I have found that sticking to the above prescriptions results in something that is really no more difficult to use than ARC or ZOO. With this implementation of TeX the Atari ST can hold its head high in some very sophisticated company. People who squawk about the amount of disk space required by TeX should realize that it is not really any worse than that tied up by Ultrascript and it is not too much worse than what you have to go through to bring up Publisher ST.
ballier@blnosz.UUCP (Ralph Ballier) (12/13/89)
In article <8912080827.AA01524@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV writes: > > The recent ruckus about the docs for FORM program has brought to >light a lot of misconceptions about TeX. I personally view *.TeX >files as a preferred form of documentations for the following >reasons: [......] > > >4). The output on an SLM804 laser printer is simply beautiful. > [......] > >I must, however, agree with those who feel that Jos. Vermasern should >have distributed the .TEX file rather than the .DVI file. Mr I have FORM printed with the SLM804 and ST-TeX, and there were not any problems and no breaks (except for filling the paper-box). The ouput ist beautiful, indeed. The printing-rate was about four pages per minute. Thanks to Jos. for that very good work. ================================================================================ Ralph Ballier Lise-Meitner-Schule Oberstufenzentrum Chemie, Physik und Biologie Rudower Strasse 184 1000 Berlin 47 ballier@blnosz.UUCP Tel. 030/6611011 ...!tub!blnosz!ballier ================================================================================