Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!apple!agate!shelby!neon!torrie From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan J Torrie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications Subject: Re: Mac's Microsoft Word Message-ID: <1991Jan15.214938.13706@Neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 15 Jan 91 21:49:38 GMT References: <1991Jan15.031444.5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> <1991Jan14.222837.20284@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Sender: torrie@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Lines: 55 rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >>1. Style Sheets. Very useful. A style sheet consists of a set of text >>formatting commands. Thus if you want to change the font or style of a > AmigaTeX, and TeX in general can do this, and has been doing so for years. >All someone has to do is hack up a nice GUI for TeX for people who aren't ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If it's so easy, why don't you do it Ray? >smart enough to learn a language. (The Mac motto, hide the computer from the >user with a blindfolding GUI. BlackBox.) > Someone could easily make an Arexx script to process TeX files and make >changes to fonts, sizes, styles, etc. > I can live without it though, search/replace in an editor works fine. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Although it would perhaps be possible to do this with some super-duper Search/Replace function [probably involving huge regular expressions, and extremely complicated semantics], style sheets make this automatic. Please, if you haven't seen style sheets [hell, they've been around for over 5 years], you really don't know what you're missing. >>[lots of other comparison to TeX deleted] > Basically, everything you've stated is either already in an Amiga >WP, or in TeX. Some people argue TeX is hard. I disagree, some people are >just intimidated or frightened that they may actually have to learn >something about their computer and the workings of computer languages. Yes, TeX can do basically everything that Word can do. But it IS complicated to learn. The point is that people DON'T have to learn about the "workings of computer languages" to get a powerful word processor. Word already exists in a user-friendly form. Incidentally, I consider Nisus 3.0 to be a much more powerful word processor than Word, so Word should not be taken as the be-all and end-all of word processors. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu "I didn't get where I am today without knowing a good deal when I see one, Reggie." "Yes, C.J."