Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!bbn.com!cosell
From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: WYSIWYG flamage (was Re: what is a word processor and is it any good)
Message-ID: <43132@bbn.COM>
Date: 23 Jul 89 15:54:15 GMT
References: <20306@adm.BRL.MIL> <26558@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <18681@mimsy.UUCP> <8735@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
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Reply-To: cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
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In article <8735@attctc.Dallas.TX.US> wnp@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Wolf Paul) writes:
}In article <18681@mimsy.UUCP> chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
}>The problem actually goes deeper than this.  The whole point of WYSIWYG
}>is that what you see is what you get: you see what you get; you get
}>what you see. ...
}
}However, some of the more popular word processors in the PC world,
}notably PC-Write, are very much like a combination of editor and
}formatter in a UNIX environment. ...
}
}And even more expensive and sophisticated programs like MS-WORD do
}not act as WYSIWYG systems while you are entering and editing text --
}not until you hit the PREVIEW command do you get to see an (often illegible!)
}approximation of what your page looks like. So someone could equally
}well write a troff or tex screen previewer (maybe this even exists, already)

Just so: on the Amiga, AmigaTeX will let you run with two windows open
and type TeX into one and have the previewer show it to you formatted in
the other (most of this comes partly-for-free because, unlike the MAC and the
PC, the Amiga will really multi-task, and so having the two windows 'active'
is no real trick: the only sneaky part is the IPC to get your text down into
TeX, and then the .dvi back up to Preview mostly auotmatically).

}And in any case, give me systems which store my files as flat text files,
}with formatting instructions embedded where they belong, rather than systems
}like WORD, which have their own proprietary file format which is difficult
}to decipher and convert to something else, or to rapidly modify using such
}tools as sed and awk.

There are two other major problems with WYSIWYG systems:

    they lose most of the logical structure of the document, and so
    impede its text being used in other contexts (where the printing
    rules may be different).  The newer WYSIWYG systems (like Word 4.0)
    address this to some extent, but it is still fairly marginal by the
    standards of the really powerful highlevel markup systems [for
    example: you start on a doc that will talk about Unix and decide,
    for no really good reason [you're not really trained in all this,
    after all] to use boldface for Unix commands AND Unix file names.
    You run off a proof of your document and realize that this is was a
    loser of a decision: how do you change it now?  In TeX, you would
    have had \filename and \command and just tweaked one or the other.
    When this happened with a WYSIWYG doc here, a programmer had to go
    through the WHOLE document by hand, and carefully sort out which
    was which, and then a copyeditor had to go and change the font on
    EACH affected word....ugh!  The real world (of multi-author
    documents, of text that must survive its original venue and move
    forward from document to document) is filled with examples like
    this where the loss of the logical structure of the document bags
    you.

    The second is that virtually no one with a Mac on their desk has
    the barest smidgeon of training in matters relating to document layout
    and design[*].  Fonts , point sizes, leading, page layout, etc., are
    chosen at random or on a whim, typographical conventions are
    invented on the fly.  Is the page too black (and so will turn
    readers away)?  Is it hard to skim the document (and so any reader
    who is bored in the first page will be obliged to dump the
    document)?  Does the document help focus the reader's (presumably
    limited) attention on the really important parts?  Does the
    document shout "We're not very professional here"?  Judging from
    most of the stuff produced here at BBN, the prevailing attitude is
    that having read a whole bunch qualifies them to "we don't know art
    but know what we like" [just as, I suppose, they would argue that a
    lifetime of watching movies qualifies them to direct one]; the
    'meta issues' (like "does the document really DO what it was
    intended for?") is not even a consideration.

	[*] As I've pointed out here at BBN, and as is painfully
	apparent to the editorial staff who have to SEE a lot of the
	crap we write, very few of us are even competent to deal with
	the basic *writing* style matters.  Would these ideas be better
	served by longer or shorter paragraphs?  Should they be
	described in running text or in a simple bulleted list?  Should
	it be written in the present or future tense?  Are the
	sentences too long and complicated?  etc...  It is amazing to
	get into an argument over point sizes with someone who seems
	not to be able to write a decent paragraph in the first place,
	but is filled to the brim with ironclad opinions about the
	proper way to PRESENT the sow's ear so as to silk-purse it.

   __
  /  )                              Bernie Cosell
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