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From: jans@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <992@mako.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Dec-85 01:08:14 EST
Article-I.D.: mako.992
Posted: Mon Dec 30 01:08:14 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jan-86 00:29:02 EST
References: <2592@glacier.ARPA> <11287@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <990@mako.UUCP> <2643@glacier.ARPA>
Reply-To: jans@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 24
Summary: 

In article <2643@glacier.ARPA> reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes:
>In article <990@mako.UUCP> jans@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman) writes:
>>Take, for instance, Richard Stallman's GNU emacs.  It is best known as a
>>WYSIWYG text editor, however, it also has a text-manipulation language...
>
>Emacs is not a WYSIWYG editor. It is a display editor...

Semantics, semantics!  Emacs is a WYSIWYG /text editor\ as opposed to a /text
formatter\.  You type a character, it appears on the screen as a graphical
representation of that character's position in the file.  What-you-see-is-what-
you-get, clear and simple.

There exists another class of tools, which I will call /text formatters\, that
describe certain /attributes\ of text, as opposed to a mere ASCII
interpretation of that text.  My point, which one completely missed, and Brian
obfuscated, is that there should be an "emacs" of the text-formatter world --
a WYSIWYG formatter with a tightly integrated attribute description language.

Like Peter (love your middle name!) Korn, I am anxiously awaiting Brian's
thoughts on why this is impossible.
-- 
:::::: Artificial   Intelligence   Machines   ---   Smalltalk   Project ::::::
:::::: Jan Steinman		Box 1000, MS 60-405	(w)503/685-2956 ::::::
:::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans	Wilsonville, OR 97070	(h)503/657-7703 ::::::