turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) (05/27/91)
----- In article <ROLFL.91May27123127@hedda.uio.no> rolfl@hedda.uio.no (Rolf Lindgren) writes: > ... The comparison with WYSIWYG word processors doesn't keep up > because TeX offers you the ability to take any degree of control, > something that word processors can't if you want to keep their > operation user friendly. Word processors have the great > disadvantage that they try to conform to the notion that `"it's > more important that programs are easy to use, than that they > do what they're supposed to do" ... Some might say that programs such as TeX have succombed to the "fallacy" that "it's more important that programs [have the most beautiful output], than that they do what they are supposed to do". What Mr Lindgren fails to note is that different people have different views of what their writing tool is "supposed to do", which is why there are different tools in the first place. I want my writing tool to do several things. (1) Make it easy for me to write and edit papers. (2) Produce good hard copy. (3) Produce a good screen display for reading. (4) Support transmission of papers and paper fragments. In my opinion, TeX and its variants totally fail (1). They are also poor at (3) -- it is more difficult for me to browse a TeX file than it is for me to browse a file under almost any of the Mac word processors. (For the former, I have to learn how to get on the screen a formatted or de-TeX'd image. The first is difficult and the latter is unacceptable. To browse a word processor file on the Mac, I just double click and scroll.) TeX is marginally superior at (2), which is why I originally posed the question. But, in my opninion, the difference is not so great that it makes up for TeX's other deficiencies. It is more complex to describe how TeX both succeeds and fails at the final goal. Supposedly, one should be able to e-mail a TeX file, and the recipient can run it off and see the desired hard copy. The last time someone tried to send me a paper this way, I and a local TeX expert spent an hour searching for the right TeX macro package. Feh! For this purpose, Postscript or other printer image files are *much* better. Send me the .dvi and forget about the TeX! The other problem is that people try to send me, or even post (!), TeX fragments for reading and editing. This is totally useless; I neither read nor write TeX. (Admittedly, word processors do not do well at (4) either. One can send the Postscript output of course, and if the other person uses the same or a compatible word-processor, one can send the original file. In this regard, the choices are the same as for TeX. But one can also send a plain-text version produced by the word processor, which is usually for superior to deTeX'd files, and plain-text fragments are more easily read back into complete papers.) The belief that a writing tool that does (1) well cannot do (2) well is wrong. In many Mac word processors there are frequent format changes that affect global appearance. The better ones do the change in the background, and at some point a reformat "wave" will move down the screen. (I hardly even notice it.) Thus, both global formatting control and WYSIWYG are preserved. (Even for paragraph or page wide spacing calculation, the tool could first display a line by line approximation as text is entered, and then once the paragraph is finished or the cursor is off the page, redisplay any changes to the paragraph or page.) Writing tools are getting better at both (1) and (2). The difference in (2) between tools like TeX and word processors is small. (It took me three years to notice and wonder about it.) Soon, it will be negligible or non-existent. TeX will then disappear, except perhaps as an intermediate form, and, of course, for those die-hards who, having learned this baroque language, will continue in its use. Russell