Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!sun!cbmvax!daveh@rutgers.edu
From: cbmvax!daveh@rutgers.edu (Dave Haynie)
Newsgroups: comp.text.desktop
Subject: Re: Yuppie software
Message-ID: <41797@sun.uucp>
Date: 12 Feb 88 19:43:22 GMT
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Distribution: comp
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Approved: desktop-request%plaid@sun.com

> I agree that plain TeX is not easy to use, but the vast majority
> of people shouldn't be using plain TeX.  If you're going to use TeX
> you need a set of macros that make it easy to type in your document
> and that handle all of the stylistic conventions that you're
> following (LaTeX is the best example).  

And if you're running in a suitable graphics environment, you can run a
previewing program to see what your final output will look like.  There's
an Amiga version of TeX that has such a previewer.

> One of the other advantages of TeX is that on Unix and DOS (I'm not
> sure about TeXtures on the Mac) you can use your favorite editor to
> edit your .tex files.  

Though I haven't personally tried this, there are now Amiga version of TeX
and one of the Micro Emacs editors that support AREXX interfaces.  What this
means is that you could very simply have an Emacs macro to take a region or
buffer, run it through TeX, and fire up the previewer for you, all in one
fell swoop.

> Typically the search, replace, macro capability, etc. capabilities of the
> WYSIWYG systems isn't nearly as good as a Unix or Unix descendant text
> editor (for example, emacs and vi).

Similarly, the word processing capabilities like sectioning, indexing, auto
bibliographies, footnoting, subdocuments, etc. isn't as powerful in WYSIWYG
wordprocessors as programs such as TeX or Scribe.  Part of this is certainly
based on the assumption that if you can see it happening, you won't mind
doing as much for yourself.  And on the fact that a WYSIWYG word processor
is forced to incorporate 2-4 distinct functions (text editing, word processing,
page layout, and perhaps some form of graphic editing).  This places a great
demands on that one program, especially if it's expected to all run on old
systems like PCs with 8 bit CPUs and less than a meg of memory.

> But the main point is that you shouldn't think that one program is
> going to fill all of your desktop publishing needs.
-- 
Dave Haynie  "The B2000 Guy"     Commodore-Amiga  "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: D-DAVE H     BIX: hazy
		"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
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