Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik
From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: what is a word processor and is it any good
Summary: I would be glad to get even that
Message-ID: <1438@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 23 Jul 89 19:44:18 GMT
References: <20306@adm.BRL.MIL> <26558@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <18681@mimsy.UUCP> <8735@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Lines: 38

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.  *By definition* you cannot get things without seeing
> >them; once you do, you are no longer talking about WYSIWYG---if you get
> >something without seeing it, then what you see is not what you get.
> >At best, what you see is less than what you get.  At worst, what you
> >see is completely different from what you get.  Most of the WYSIWYG
> >systems I have seen are really somewhere in between, and none have
> >been pure WYSIWYG.
> 
> No, unless you have something like a previewer on a Sun-size screen,
> most everything called WYSIWYG today is actually WYSIaWYG -- "WHAT
> YOU SEE IS   A L M O S T  WHAT YOU GET" -- and in many ways this is
> worse than batch style editing/formatting.

It seems clear that Mr. Paul has no understanding of the problems of 
much of mathematical writing.  I prefer to compose my papers, and even
tests and homework assignments, at the keyboard.  For tests and homework
assignments, even a fair WYSIaWYG is better than any batch style 
formatting processor.

I can assure you that an easily programmed downloadable character set,
with the usual display sizes on a terminal, would be more valuable than
any batch processer like TeX or, even worse, troff.  If I need good output,
I can have the secretary fix it up.  But I want to get a draft out as
easily as, and in fact more easily than, using handwriting, and have the
file in such a way that the secretary can pretty up the output.

I myself used WYSIAWYG, a correspondent suggested that WYSIMOLWYG would
be better.  But I want to see a reasonable approximation to the output
on the screen as I type it, and I consider that, for my purposes, far
more important than beauty.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)