Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site utastro.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!gatech!ut-sally!utastro!nather
From: nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: embedded-command text systems
Message-ID: <151@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Dec-85 10:45:50 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.151
Posted: Mon Dec  9 10:45:50 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Dec-85 07:16:19 EST
References: <705@unc.unc.UUCP> <2168@glacier.ARPA>
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 38

In article <2168@glacier.ARPA>, reid@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes:
> You are right that most of what is done with TeX is ugly, but the reason for
> this has nothing to do with TeX. It has to do with the aesthetic sense of
> the person using TeX. Systems like TeX give the author too much control over
> the appearance of the document, and if the author misuses that control the
> resulting document is ugly.
> 
[ ... ]
> WYSIWYG systems give the user even more control over the appearance than TeX
> does--with the concomitant possibility of even more abuse of that control.
> 	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid

While I agree that ugliness often lies in an underdeveloped sense of style,
I can't agree with Brian's solution, as exemplified by the Scribe text
formatter: don't let the user get at the machinery because he'll muck it up.
This attitude assumes the user is a dolt and may be fine if he is, but it
is thoroughly frustrating to someone who has (or thinks he has) a reasonable
aesthetic sense of typography and is unable to get exactly what he wants.
To be fair, the Scribe manual warns you by suggesting if you can't get just
what you want you're being to fussy.  Maybe so ... I quit using Scribe some
time ago because I couldn't get exactly what I want.  Many other people
disagree with me locally, so I am in a minority.  *sigh*

But it's not clear to me you can't have a system that allows the user to
specify, in a general way, what he's after, and still permit him to reach
under the hood and twiddle if he's willing to learn how.  Since many
people are happy with the formatting options Scribe provides, they will
have no interest in exploring the underlying machinery, and the "canned
aesthetics" provided may well be better than they could do for themselves.
But if they feel they can bend the result nearer their heart's desire,
and are willing to learn how, I don't think they should be prevented from
doing so ... and they might even learn a bit more about typographic taste 
in the process.
-- 
Ed Nather
Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather
nather@astro.UTEXAS.EDU