Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!kth!draken!tut!pk From: pk@tut.fi (Kellom{ki Pertti) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: Meta-literacy (was Re: a word-processor for UNIX) Message-ID: Date: 7 Aug 89 08:41:41 GMT References: <2147@randvax.UUCP> <1627@naucse.UUCP> Sender: News@tut.fi Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland. Lines: 24 In-reply-to: jdc@naucse.UUCP's message of 3 Aug 89 15:15:58 GMT On 3 Aug 89 15:15:58 GMT, jdc@naucse.UUCP (John Campbell) said: John> this capacity--why not computer text? If amateur literature (letters, email, John> etc.) has proven useful, couldn't a case be made for amateur layout. [...] John> With apology to Leslie Lamport, let's go back about 3000 years. In that John> era wouldn't the paragraph above have said: John> "It is more useful to work with an experienced scribe in forming your John> letters in order to create a shipping list, business report, or whatever. John> When everyone becomes an amateur literate, the result is inevitably a John> great deal of amateurish literature." Isn't that one of the reasons that people go to high school for: to become at least moderately literate. I wouldn't have any objection to amateur layout, if layout were as widely taught as composing text. Amateur layout is ok for personal use, but for material that is to be more widely distributed (like books) I'd much rather see a professional do the job. -- Pertti Kellom\"aki (TeX format) # Software will be a science when programmers Tampere Univ. of Technology # stand on each other's shoulders instead Software Systems Lab # of each other's toes