Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekcrl!tekgvs!jans
From: jans@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Why you should use NeWS as a tool to learn PostScript
Message-ID: <3971@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 88 17:41:44 GMT
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 44

<<<don@brillig.umd.edu.UUCP (Don Hopkins)>>>
<<roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith)>>
<mh@wlbr.eaton.com.UUCP (Mike Hoegeman)>

<<<If you want to learn PostScript, NeWS is the way to go -- it's an exciting 
and gratifying programming environment!  Don't waste your time trying to learn 
an interactive interpretive language like PostScript by...>>>

<<I can't agree that learning NeWS is the way to learn PostScript.  It's like 
trying to learn yacc at the same time you are learning C>>

<Here's all you have to do...  As Don was trying pointing out IT's INTERACTIVE 
!!  Using a printer to do PostScript development on is downright primitive...>

<<I still maintain that NeWS is different enough from PostScript to make in 
inadvisable to use the former as a tool for learning the latter.>>

Before I launch into this, let me list my qualifications.  I've heard of NeWS.  
My Mac sends PostScript to a printer.  I own (but have not completely read) the 
Red and Blue.  I tried some PostScript hackery once, but quit after several 
hours of getting nothing but illegible error messages out of the printer.  I've 
been using Smalltalk for over four years.

Given such *extensive* knowledge, I side firmly with Don.  When I try to 
imagine how long it would take to learn Smalltalk without its environment, I 
shudder.  The real issue here is how much support an environment provides the 
learner, and sending bits and pieces of code to a printer, walking half a 
block, then waiting for the inevitable banner page filled with meaningless 
error messages, followed by a blank page -- this is not a very productive 
learning environment!  The secondary issue -- separating the environment from 
the language -- is not nearly as important for the initial learning process.  
(How can former Pascal people be productive without knowing that printf() is 
not a part of C?)

Perhaps I've been spoiled by Smalltalk.  Perhaps I need some attitude 
adjustment.  But I think the current state of learning PostScript (as well as 
the current state of software development in general) is summed up by a sign 
someone here has hanging on their wall: "The Flogging Will Continue Until 
Morale Improves."  The dismal state of things is that we all eventually get 
used to the flogging.

:::::: Software Productivity Technologies -- Experiment Manager Project ::::::
:::::: Jan Steinman N7JDB	Box 500, MS 50-383	(w)503/627-5881 ::::::
:::::: jans@tekcrl.TEK.COM	Beaverton, OR 97077	(h)503/657-7703 ::::::