Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hpl-opus!hpspdra!mikef
From: mikef@hpspdra.HP.COM (Mike Fischer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga word processors
Message-ID: <13570017@hpspdra.HP.COM>
Date: 17 Jan 90 21:44:06 GMT
References: <1990Jan15.143614.516@odi.com>
Organization: HP Stanford Park - Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 42

Thanks for the summary.  The lack of a really attractive word processor
for Amy has kept me from buying one also.  I had thought that Word
Perfect would be the answer, but my current front runner is ProWrite.

Instead of buying a word processor, I've been learning more and more
about the editor--formatter approach.  I recall one good book titled
something like _Text in Unix_ that has a quote, "WYSIWIG usually means
that 'what you see is ALL you get'", making the point that word processors
are more limited than formatters.

For an editor, just give me most any flavor of EMACS or a derivative,
like Qed on HotMix103 from the First Amiga Users Group (Si Valley, CA).

The formatter area is where it really gets interesting.  The most
recently updated is nro.  One of the oldest is proff from Fish 9.  I
have looked at the documentation for nro v1.5 from Fish 197 and in a
cursory (probably unfair) comparison with proff I get:

			      nro	     proff
			      ---	     -----
	Startup Options		6		8
	Commands	       45	       50
	Translations	       10		0

I should admit that I couldn't figure out how the translations in nro
would be of use to me.  Things in proff that are missing from nro are:
table of contents generation, variable setting, interactive variable
setting, redefinition of special characters, save current formatter
context on a push-down stack, redefinition of commands (separate from
the macros), autoparagraph, send special printer codes transparently,
and two sets of canned macros: both mm and ms.  All this led me to
infer that proff was actually closer to the nroff/troff on mainframes
than nro.

A question that makes me suspicious of my assumptions is, "If proff is
better than nro, then why are people still working on nro and releasing
updated versions?" Does anyone have any insights on this? From lots I've
heard I think I'll be standardizing on AmigaTeX/LaTeX at home and LaTeX
at work eventually, and I'm using the *roff experience as a stepping
stone.
--
Mike Fischer mikef@hpspd.hp.com (415) 857-6444 HP Stanford Park R&D