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From: korn@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <11287@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 23-Dec-85 18:17:17 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11287
Posted: Mon Dec 23 18:17:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 01:48:07 EST
References: <2592@glacier.ARPA>
Reply-To: korn@ucbvax.UUCP (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 48

In article <2592@glacier.ARPA> reid@su-glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes:
>...... What I have done is offered several claims that WYSIWYG systems are
>NOT the way of the future, and specifically that they are not an improvement
>over earlier ways of doing things. WYSIWYG systems do provide functionality
>that was not present in compiler-model systems, but they do so at the cost
>of omitting significant other capabilities.
>.
>.
>Compiler-model systems are better for these kinds of things:
>
>  * Situations where someone besides author has responsibility for the
>design and appearance of the final document, especially if the author has
>opinions in this area and might try to manipulate the appearance anyhow.
>
>  * Situations where the details of the appearance are secondary, and the
>content is the primary means of communication (e.g. textbooks, memoranda)
>
>  * Material that is likely to be re-used in a different format or context.
>For example, a paper that you are writing could become a chapter in a book
>or an appendix in a research proposal...
>.
>.
>  * Documents where structure is important, or where the structure is likely
>to change significantly during the life of the document.
>.
>.

I agree and I disagree, Brian.  Given _current_ WYSIWYG and compiler-oriented
editors, yes, compiler-oriented systems are still the best paradigm for
those four catagories above (and probably others too).  But the trend in 
the field of computing has been "make the computer come closer to the human".
I believe this will be the case with editors, so that, four years from now,
very few people will be using un-mnemonic (or even truely mnemonic) commands
to format their text.  Rather I think we'll see mostly partial-WYSIWYG editors
(the type that show *most* of the changes as you type, but save the highly
computational ones until told to do them).  By the time that everyone has
a CRAY on their desk...  Given the increases in computing power that we can
in all reasonableness [can I reasonably use that work?  :-)] expect, I don't
see why WYSIWYG wouldn't become the standard.  With the exception of
transportability between several users, all of WYSIWYG's problems will go
away with computing power.  Further, programs that would convert between
WYSIWYG_foo and WYSIWYG_bar wouldn't be too hard to write (I wouldn't think).
So, given this, I don't understand *why* you feel that compiler-oriented
editors will be the wave of the future?  The only reason not brought up that
I can think of would be "more people would prefer to use commands".  I'd
rather leave that one up to a pollster!

Peter