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From: guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: embedded-command text systems
Message-ID: <3063@sun.uucp>
Date: Sat, 7-Dec-85 02:04:37 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.3063
Posted: Sat Dec  7 02:04:37 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Dec-85 03:33:38 EST
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> BALONEY. There is a place in the world for WYSIWYG systems that do not use
> embedded commands, but there is a large class of documents that 
> cannot be done at all well with the kind of interactive system that you are
> talking about. Anything where the structure is as important as the content.
> Cookbooks like the @i[Joy of Cooking]. Encyclopedias. Airline schedules.
> Dictionaries. Reference manuals for computer software.
> 
> Interactive systems are just fine for small documents, and for documents
> whose appearance is extremely important with respect to their content. They
> are not OK for large documents.

Well, I dunno about the other categories (all of which have somewhat
specialized format requirements), but when I was at CCI we did all the
reference manuals for our Office Power computer software on a WYSIWYG
system.  They were definitely large documents.  I won't say one way or the
other whether they were "done well" or not.  I certainly found it infinitely
nicer to work with that system than with "[n/t]roff" and its symbiotes.  (I've
not worked with TeX, or with Scribe; from reading TeX Scribe writeups and
manuals, it seems like a lot of the sheer unmitigated pain of working with
"[n/t]roff" et cie. may not be present with those systems.)

However, from other messages in this sequence it seems I must state whether
I've written any software of one or the other sort.  Very well - I
originally wrote the WYSIWYG system that we used at CCI (which makes it not
too surprising that I'd like it).

> Whether or not interactive systems will EVER be ok for this kind of material
> is an open research topic. My own belief is that it is possible to build an
> interactive system that does not throw away all of the extra capability that
> the batch systems give you right now.  However, as long as the interactive
> text formatting programs are being programmed by people who think that
> interactive systems are inherently better, there is no danger of them
> becoming better.

I tend to agree with you on this.  (However, if a paragraph formatting
algorithm like TeX's, rather than the traditional "greedy algorithm" is
used, it may be WYSIWYG but What You See may not be What You Edit - it may
be better to have something like IBM's Janus system, where you edit on a
screen which displays text with embedded markup and view on another screen;
if the whole paragraph changes, rather than just the current line and lines
below (and occasionally one above) the current line, you may risk going
blind if you don't keep strictly to the Eyes On The Copy rule).  If the
"JATO-assisted-typewriter" model that a number of word processors is taken
as the way such editors should be, there is, indeed, no danger of those
systems being completely superior for large documents.  The Interleaf system
seems to be a step in the right direction, as it treats the document as
being made up of objects with certain "properties" (or "styles" or
"environments", depending on what term you use), rather than just being a
string of characters.

	Guy Harris