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From: garry@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Garry Wiegand)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: Re: Replacements for TeX
Message-ID: <257@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: Tue, 18-Feb-86 03:04:58 EST
Article-I.D.: batcompu.257
Posted: Tue Feb 18 03:04:58 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Feb-86 08:19:29 EST
Reply-To: garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cornell.edu.arpa
Organization: Cornell Engineering && Flying Moose Graphics
Lines: 48

In a recent article Tim Rentsch ('>') writes in response to me ('>>') :
>>    1) It will indeed (eventually) generate good-looking output for almost
>>       any situation, and
>
>If you think TeX generates good-looking output, you are really
>living in a fool's paradox.  For one thing, the fonts are terrible...

We're using the Postscript's fonts, not TeX's. It's a shame good computerized 
fonts are so hard to come by in the world, especially for free :-)

>>    Is anyone out there working on a tool which will combine the 
>>    functionality of TeX with a decent human interface?
>
>Why would anyone want one?  If you want nice looking output and a
>good user interface, I would suggest a Macintosh.

I deal in manuscripts running up to several hundred pages, with figures,
tables of contents, indices, cross-references, special page layouts, etc
etc etc up the wazoo. I'd love to have a real CAD documentation system
for keeping track of all this information, but I can't afford the $$$$.
I'm not aware of anything on the Mac that comes anywhere near doing a
tolerable job. 


And in a private mailing Andrew Reibman responds:
>Why don't you try Lamport's LATEX - I think you'll find it mutch more
>agreeable - plus you have access to all of TEX's funcitonality

Latex, I think, puts one back in a league with Nroff/Runoff etc, where
someone else has made a few limited choices about what the poor lowly
user is to be allowed to do. Mixing Tex into Latex requires considerable
luck and/or fortitude. And the Latex manual (at least the old version)
is a bit scrambled in the brains -- I've had to write notes explaining 
Mr. Lamport's explanations.


What I was really asking is: with what can we replace this godawful macro/
macro/macro/what-do-I-do-with-a-space/mouth&stomach language? I admit 
I'm puzzled about what a replacement might look like - the problem does
not neatly fall into any traditional computer language. Creative suggestions,
anyone?


garry wiegand
garry%cadif-oak@cu-arpa.cs.cornell.edu   (arpa)

[Perhaps a new TeX front end would be a suitable project for a human-
interfaces or programming languages course... hint hint]