chpf127@ut-emx.UUCP (John W. Eaton) (07/25/89)
In article <8467@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> lacey@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (John Lacey) writes: >> [...] Nevertheless, virtually all who work professionally will >> stick with the generally harder to use high end equipment [presumably TeX|*roff, though I might not go so far as to say harder to use...] In article <1552@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> mcclaren@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP (Tim McClarren) asks: > But then why is it that more and more I pick up a book, flip through > a couple of pages, and lo & behold, there it is right alongside the > copyright and Lib. of Congress info -- "This book written and > typeset with a Macintosh II and Microsoft Word" or some such? I > dunno...maybe I read too much popular lit./media, but I've not seen > a whole lot of "This book written under vi, and typeset with > LaTeX/*roff on Bob & Jim's UNIX(c) box." Well, because the people who write the books you've been reading aren't professionals :-) or you're just not looking at the right books :-). Most of the Unix books published by Prentice-Hall have been typsest using troff, and the AWK book and Stroustrup's C++ book were too. Wolfram's Mathematica was typeset in TeX, as were Golub and Van Loan's Matrix Computations, Press et al.'s Numerical Recipes, Gill et al.'s Practical Optimization, etc. etc. etc. Granted, not all of the books produced using TeX/LaTeX are shining examples of superior typesetting skill (but then again neither are all then books done with MSWord). Perhaps you're reading too many McBooks :-) about the McMacintosh :-). -- John Eaton chpf127@emx.utexas.edu Department of Chemical Engineering The University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas 78712
woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) (07/27/89)
In article <233@psgdc> rg@psgdc.UUCP (Dick Gill) writes: > In article <1989Jul21.203719.3716@eci386.uucp> I write: > >> [ from yet another article in the chain! ] > >> Concerning the use of formatting languages vs. publishing systems: > > > >Hold on a moment. Are you a programmer? I am. I find little > > Maybe this is the crux of the matter. Programmers approach > problems in a particular way, and the production of finished > text is simply another problem to be solved using familiar > tools. [ and more about writing zillions of massive macros.] I'm not sure I've ever written more than 5 or 6 troff macros. None of them were more than 4 lines long. What I'm eluding to is the use of already written macro packages such as MM. The grammar of MM is very simple. The number of keywords, and their understandability makes it a bit worse, but far from impossible. The worst part of learning MM (and troff) is the language used in the documentation (registers? in a formatter? :-). However, there are plenty of well written guides to using MM and troff. > Maybe it is convnience or maybe it is ego; probably it is both. > Sure, is efficient to be able to produce a complex document > without having to screw around with the format each time, but > the real lure is that the machine work in ways comfortable to > me and thus gets out of the way so that I can get some writing > done. That is, after all, the point, isn't it? If I was to claim I was programming while writing a document with troff, I'd have SERIOUS ego troubles. MM lets me write without thinking much about the final "look and feel" of the document. After I've done the writing, either I, or someone else, can, with relative ease, adjust the style of the document. They don't have to edit every formatting directive in my document to change the look. -- Greg A. Woods woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft,gpu.utcs.UToronto.CA,utorgpu.BITNET} +1-416-443-1734 [h] +1-416-595-5425 [w] Toronto, Ontario CANADA
bsa@telotech.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) (07/28/89)
In article <15680@ut-emx.UUCP>, chpf127@ut-emx (John W. Eaton) writes: +--------------- | In article <8467@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> lacey@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu | (John Lacey) writes: | >> [...] Nevertheless, virtually all who work professionally will | >> stick with the generally harder to use high end equipment | | [presumably TeX|*roff, though I might not go so far as to say harder | to use...] | | In article <1552@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> mcclaren@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP | (Tim McClarren) asks: | > But then why is it that more and more I pick up a book, flip through | > a couple of pages, and lo & behold, there it is right alongside the | > copyright and Lib. of Congress info -- "This book written and | > typeset with a Macintosh II and Microsoft Word" or some such? I | > dunno...maybe I read too much popular lit./media, but I've not seen | > a whole lot of "This book written under vi, and typeset with | > LaTeX/*roff on Bob & Jim's UNIX(c) box." | | Well, because the people who write the books you've been reading | aren't professionals :-) or you're just not looking at the right | books :-). +--------------- Because troff and TeX are optimized for technical books, not for popular ones. You'd pretty much have to invent your own macro packages to typeset a GFQ (Generic Fantasy Quest) novel, or for "how-to" books, etc. ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery @ telotech, inc. (I do not speak for telotech. Ever.) *This article may only be redistributed if all articles listed in the header's* * References: field, and all articles listing this one in their References: * * fields, are also redistributed. *
urban@randvax.UUCP (Mike Urban) (07/31/89)
In article <1989Jul28.163816.1527@telotech.uucp> bsa@telotech.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >+--------------- >You'd pretty much have to invent your own macro packages to typeset a GFQ >(Generic Fantasy Quest) novel, or for "how-to" books, etc. > >++Brandon At the risk of belaboring a point that has been made several times, it would be more useful to work with an experienced professional in layout design in order to create the Troff macros or LaTeX document style for your Generic Barbarian novel or whatever. When everyone becomes an amateur layout designer, the result is inevitably a great deal of amateurish layout. -- Mike Urban urban@rand.ORG
bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) (08/02/89)
In article <1989Jul28.163816.1527@telotech.uucp> bsa@telotech.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: |Because troff and TeX are optimized for technical books, not for popular ones. |You'd pretty much have to invent your own macro packages to typeset a GFQ |(Generic Fantasy Quest) novel, or for "how-to" books, etc. While it may be true that TeX is, in some sense "optimized" for technical work, I fail to see how it is "de-optimized" for popular work. Indeed, setting novel in TeX is much easier than setting a technical work; setting a novel is trivial. No tables, or anything, just straight text, with blank lines for paragraph breaks. What could be easier? Practically the only coding for most novels would be setting up the margins and headers, a few pages of front and back material, and trivial macros for the chapter heads. And, of course, very occaisonal italics. The reason TeX is rarely used for these--or at least for a far smaller percentage of popular novels than of technical books is because, since the task is so simple, almost any software can do it. Also, fewer of these type of people set their own stuff, being less technically oriented. But nothing about TeX (and, I suspect, nothing about troff either) makes setting such works more difficult. -- -- Brian, the Man from Babble-on. ...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts -- "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of" -- THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (08/03/89)
In article <1126@sas.UUCP> bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) writes: >In article <1989Jul28.163816.1527@telotech.uucp> bsa@telotech.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >|Because troff and TeX are optimized for technical books, not for popular ones. The Davis Medieval Texts and Studies Program has done a score or more of books on medieval Latin and Greek rhetoric using troff. Much of the experience generated by this project is included in Kevin P. Roddy, UNIX Nroff/Troff: A User's Guide (Holt, Rinehart, Winston: 1987). Roddy's speciality is medieval rhetoric. Mine is Japanese history. We've both found troff more useful for serious publishing in our respective fields than highly touted word-processors specifically oriented to the humanities.