Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 SMI; site sun.uucp
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!guy
From: guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: embedded-command text systems
Message-ID: <3068@sun.uucp>
Date: Sat, 7-Dec-85 03:00:06 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.3068
Posted: Sat Dec  7 03:00:06 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Dec-85 03:34:51 EST
References: <471@harvard.ARPA> <773@mmintl.UUCP> <734@tpvax.fluke.UUCP> <etc> <1861@glacier.ARPA> <116@utastro.UUCP> <1919@glacier.ARPA>
Distribution: net
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 28

> I claim that, for a wide range of publications, the traditional graphic-arts
> industry approach of cutting, pasting, and wysiwyg systems simply cannot be
> competitive with more software-intensive approaches such as embedded-command
> systems. You will be trading one programmer for 4 graphic artists.

What do you mean by "software-intensive" in this case?  Are you referring to
the embedded-command system as "software", or the embedded *commands* as
software?  (I.e., does the programmer in question work for the graphic-arts
company or the company that makes the machines they, or their clients, use?)
I agree that a system which merely computerizes the manual labor of pasteup,
etc. isn't the way to go.  However, I don't agree (and neither do you, I
assume, given your earlier statement that interactive systems *could* do
"automatic pasteup", etc. as well as an embedded-command system, even if
nobody ends up actually *making* such a system) that an embedded-command
system is the only alternative to such a system.  Given the choice between a
"JATO-assisted typewriter"-style WYSIWYG editor, and an embedded-command
system, it's not clear that the WYSIWYG editor is the superior choice;
however, given the choice between Interleaf and "full-frontal 'troff'", I'd
take Interleaf any day (*ceteris paribus*; machines which run Interleaf are
a bit expensive, which may be just as well as every such machine bought from
Sun helps support my somewhat profligate lifestyle :-)).

(Then again, why is the author of Scribe referring to them as
"embedded-COMMAND" systems rather than "embedded-markup" systems?  I thought
the whole point of systems like Scribe - or Interleaf - was that you didn't
have to "sweat the details"; you could let the DBA do the grunge work...)

	Guy Harris