[comp.text] WYSIWYG = DIY =hubris

eykhout@kunivv1.sci.kun.nl (Victor Eijkhout) (08/16/89)

In article <1499@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>WYSIWYG systems are the only reasonable thing for someone writing the 
>paper.  
Mark-up languages are the only reasonable thing for someone realistic
enough to know that he is a writer, not a typographical designer.

>When I compose my articles, I prefer to putting the stuff on
>the screen instead of on pieces of paper.  
When I compose my articles, I am a mathematician; I do my layout
macro writing on seperate days. 
Furthermore, I want every sentence to start on a
new line in my input. My eyes don't want to be tortured by a 
Times Roman at 70dpi.

>I have written papers using
>TeX, and it is a real pain.
I have tried to do even simple documents in MSWord and Ragtime, and
it is a real pain.

>There is no reason why a WYSIWYG system cannot be augmented into a TeX-
>like system.  
There is no reason why TeX cannot be augmented with a wysiwig-like
user interface, while retaining its power.

>In any case, it should produce output which can be easily
>and mainly mechanically converted into a typesetting language.
Right. But this is the trivial part.

Well, this discussion don't seem to be converging. Fortunately
typesetting systems are, with style sheets in wysiwyg
systems, and two-window TeX on Amiga, or the VorTeX project.

Victor.