glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) (02/28/90)
In article <1990Feb27.045623.20591@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: >I'm tired of having the newsgroup overrun by the whining and the flaming. >Sensible criticism would be useful, but the sort of criticism we've seen in >the newsgroup in the past few months shows *no* understanding of language >design, engineering tradeoffs, logical structure, consistency, or human >engineering (to name a few) - all concepts which Adobe *did* consider. >Nor have I seen anyone show even a plausible fragment of a replacement or >competitor for PostScript. It's *just* noise, and it's rude to keep >dumping nontechnical crap into a (formerly) technical newsgroup. I agree with this. After all, the "comp.lang" tree of the newsgroup hierarchy is intended for technical discussions of computer languages. The fact is, PostScript is a pretty big "user phenomenon", too, since people need to solve all sorts of other software shortcomings by using PostScript as the interoperability component. This is great, of course, but between those discussions ("How can I print my Mac document from my Foo system?") to specific printer questions and product information, this newsgroup has served another purpose which might be characterized by "misc.consumer.postscript". I'm not trying to flame, but to point out that there are really two completely different needs that are being addressed by one newsgroup, since it's the only one with "postscript" in its name. Given that essentially all the major computer vendors, including IBM, DEC, Apple, Wang, HP, TI, Sun (to a certain extent), Apollo, and quite a few others, offer PostScript products, this is hardly a minor subject, and I think perhaps a second, consumer/user/product oriented newsgroup might deserve some consideration. If nothing else, it would provide an excellent forum for those of us who have to actually get work done with PostScript to share ideas about how to make things work. I have a very limited news feed that doesn't support news.group or whatever the official forum is for discussing new newsgroups, but we can bat it around in here for a while, and if there is enough interest, maybe somebody could take some formal steps, whatever they are. Taking a quick look at the official list of newsgroups, it looks like we would want to keep the "comp" prefix, since it's pretty squarely related to computers. Although the "comp.sys" sub-tree is devoted to individual systems, what I am proposing is actually pretty strongly related to systems issues, but cross-platform issues, to a large degree. Here is a proposed name and charter: comp.sys.postscript: For discussing system-related issues surrounding use of the PostScript language, including printing, moving documents from one system to another, PostScript products, printers, graphics, 7-bit vs. 8-bit issues, network compatibility, command-F, etc. Also for discussions about the PostScript business world, political issues, standardization, and for flaming Adobe Systems :-) Maybe I'm crazy about this. Maybe it would just cause this group to dry up and blow away, but somehow I don't think so. I think there are lots of us out here who actually like to program in PostScript, and who may not be concerned with parallel interfaces to particular machines. What do the rest of you think? Glenn Reid
tinkelman@ccavax.camb.com (02/28/90)
In <150@heaven.woodside.ca.us>, glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) suggests move all but the PostScript *language* related issues out of this newsgroup into another. I am *very* much in favor of this. I an interested only in the programming-in-PostScript-as-it-exists-today articles. -- Bob Tinkelman, Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc., 212-425-5830 bob@ccavax.camb.com or ...!uunet!ccavax!bob
quodling@bunyipenet.dec.com (Peter Quodling) (02/28/90)
In article <150@heaven.woodside.ca.us>,
glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes...
{
{I'm not trying to flame, but to point out that there are really two
{completely different needs that are being addressed by one newsgroup,
{since it's the only one with "postscript" in its name.
{
..
{
{What do the rest of you think?
Like many of the viewers, I can remember the good old days when
comp.lang.postscript was devoted primarily to code examples and suchlike
things. The last of these that I saw was the "ruler" and it must have generated
50+ flames. I am all for bringing some sanity back into the newsgroup...
Peter Quodling Internet: quodling@blumon.enet.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation UUCP: ...!decwrl!blumon.enet!quodling
Nashua, NH. I disclaim everything!!!bb@shark.cis.ufl.edu (Brian Bartholomew) (03/01/90)
As the original poster of the Ruler, I suppose it is up to me to get
this newsfroup back on track :-). I might add that I have briefly
become famous in our lab, because the Ruler was the most-followed-up-
to-article on the Usenet for a two week period. Anyway, the code that
follows prints a copy of an interesting stylized "N", that I found on
the cover of an Adobe font catalog. The catalog itself is titled "Font
and Function", and I recommend it highly for all the page design hints
they include in each issue.
I am not claiming that my implementation of their design is
particularly clever or original, but it does raise some interesting
issues. First, the design on the cover was the same size as theirs
on the cover, but theirs looked a lot better because it was at
significantly higher resolution than 300 dpi. More importantly, when I
printed the same design 7 inches across on our Apple Laserwriter II
(Serial # CA850LM3%M6000, Manufacture date: December 1988 M), there is
a tiny black dot in the exact center of the concentric circles. I
certainly did not intend for this dot to be there, and it does not show
up on the reduced version. Is the dot a result of finite floating
point precision, or because of my method of clearing out the center
circle: setting linewidth to 6, and drawing a 3.5 radius circle?
----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----
%!
%
% Creator: 12/31/89 - bb@beach.cis.ufl.edu
%
% bullseyeN.ps
%
/bullseyeN {
% origin in center of bullseye
% natural size ~7 inches
/Bookman-Demi findfont 504 scalefont setfont
% letter N
gsave
(N)
dup
stringwidth pop 2 div neg -2.5 72 mul moveto show
grestore
% black circles
gsave
newpath
2 setlinewidth
13.5 20 240 {
gsave
0 0 3 -1 roll 0 360 arc
stroke
grestore
} for
grestore
% white circles
gsave
newpath
1 setgray
6 setlinewidth
3.5 20 240 {
gsave
0 0 3 -1 roll 0 360 arc
stroke
grestore
} for
grestore
} bind def
% big one in center of page
8.5 2 div 72 mul 11 2 div 72 mul translate
0 0 moveto
bullseyeN
% small one in lower left corner
-3 72 mul -4.5 72 mul translate
0 0 moveto
.2378 .2378 scale
bullseyeN
showpage
----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!bb
University of Florida Internet: bb@beach.cis.ufl.edu
--
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Bartholomew UUCP: ...gatech!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!bb
University of Florida Internet: bb@beach.cis.ufl.edu