Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnewsm!tla
From: tla@cbnewsm.ATT.COM (terry.l.anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Help me defend LaTeX
Message-ID: <5806@cbnewsm.ATT.COM>
Date: 24 Oct 89 14:03:17 GMT
References: <1762@naucse.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 46

From article <1762@naucse.UUCP>, by jdc@naucse.UUCP (John Campbell):
> One of the professors I admire here teaches a technical writing course
> (through the English department).  I took it upon myself to try to show
> him LaTeX--since he bemoaned the fact that his students couldn't typeset
> documents.
> 
> He was incredibly negative about all the hieroglyphics required to make
> LaTeX function.  He worked last year (on sabattical) with a *very* 
> expensive typesetting package on a dedicated micro-vax.  (I'm sorry, but
> I forgot the actual name of the other package--it was probably one of the
> best on the market.)
> 
> Anyway, I wasn't sure I convinced him that it was worth even a single
> class session to introduce students to this technical writing tool.  He
> was pretty adamant that such a program was a "dinosaur" and would no
> longer be part of any technical writing shop by the time his students
> graduated.
> 
> Anyone have any comments?
> -- 
> 	John Campbell               ...!arizona!naucse!jdc
>                                     CAMPBELL@NAUVAX.bitnet
> 	unix?  Sure send me a dozen, all different colors.

The chief advantage is rule based formatting.  No system of which I am 
aware has close to the power of TeX and LaTeX for precisely defining 
how a class of documents should be formatted.  One of a kind documents
or documents with one of a kind special structures will always be
easier in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get page layout system.  Most good
page layout systems allow formatting rules (style sheets, ...) but none
offer as much power as TeX/LaTeX.  Admittedly this power comes at a
price -- the format must be described by a language sufficiently 
complex to express this incredible flexibility, thus TeX is programming
language not simply a set of format option menus.

This power is often not used or needed by users and for them a less
flexible page layout system may be preferable (if the format they
need or are willing to use is available).  But when complete control
over formatting decisions is needed and many documents using these 
rules will be produced, I would always choose TeX/LaTeX.

			Terry L Anderson
			AT&T Bell Laboratories
			Warren, NJ
			tla%bartok@research.att.com