Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!ncsuvx!gatech!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!bbn.com!cosell
From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG vs programmed phototypsetting
Keywords: WYSIWYG, TeX, LaTeX, troff, MacDRAW
Message-ID: <30299@bbn.COM>
Date: 29 Sep 88 20:06:36 GMT
References: <1141@mmm.UUCP>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: cosell@BBN.COM (Bernie Cosell)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 132

In article <1141@mmm.UUCP> schultz@mmm.UUCP (John C Schultz) writes:
}I am sure this question has been asked before, but the question has 
}just arisen for me again so here goes.
}
}What do people feel are the advantages of WYSIWYG phototypsetting
}(e.g. MacWrite, FRAMEMAKE) vs what I will call "programmed"
}phototypesetting (e.g TeX, LaTeX)?

  A common prelude to a good flame-war.  Here goes...

}To start things off, here are my opinions, hopefully cleansed of
}religious opinions.

  Well, my religious opinion is that the common WYSIWYG systems are
  mostly adequate for small scale, not too formal documents, but for
  anything large-scale or constrained to be _really_ well done, I think
  that you have to go with one of the top-notch "programmed" ones.
  Note I think that we're just turning a critical corner in both
  arenas:  programmed typesetters with built-in (and very nice)
  real-time previewers (and so you can see real-quick WYG), and WYSIWYG
  systems that are _really_ just glorified highly-specialized front
  ends to an underlying programmed formatter (and so they can, at
  least, cope with some of the more complicated stuff, like footnote
  and tables of contents and such) We seem to be converging on a pretty
  good middle from both ends.

}pro WYSIWYG
}
}- easy to learn

  "easy to learn" is a bit of TANSTAAFL -- the easy ones are
  unbelievably cretinous (but surely easy), the _good_ WYSIWYG systems
  have manuals as big as SCRIBE's.  It may be easier to sit down and
  start typing a paragraph, but the WYSIWYG equivalent of \section{} or
  \enumerate{} can be a bit complicated.

....other good points....

}
}con WYSIWYG
}
}- difficult to implement style and formatting changes 
}- the writer becomes concerned  more with the format than content
}- manual labeling of page numbers, references, figures, sections, etc.
}- speed - printing speed is generally limited by printer
}- hardcopy is sometimes NOT identical to the display (tabs for instance)
}- good ones can be very expensive (e.g. Interleaf)

   I find these CONs to be a pretty good summary of what I've seen, and I
   find them (for my purposes) to be _fatal_, for the most part.  In
   particular, most of the technical people around here are (at best)
   mediocre writers; they have proven (time and time again) that they are
   ZEROs at document design.  When it comes to picking fonts and point sizes
   and numbering conventions and indentations and margins and .. and... folks
   mostly have AWFUL taste (but plenty of opinions! :-).  Almost all of the
   WYSIWYG stuff we have comes out QUITE badly done -- Ok if you're just
   whipping off an informal document, just stuff that just doesn't stand up
   even to casual scrutiny, much less serious critiquing.

   Also, other CONs are that _most_ WYSIWYG systems are pretty anemic
   formatters -- generally they provide little (if any) suport for footnotes,
   reference management, tables of contents, indexes, etc.  Again, not real
   problems in smallish, not-too-formal documents, but murder for the "real
   thing".

}pro PROGRAMMED
}
}- worry about content - then formatting
    More to the point, with good ones you *never* worry about formatting.
    They are predictable and competent.  For almost all authors, the world
    would be better served if they NEVER worried about formatting and just
    let the computer handle it.

... more good points...
}
}con PROGRAMMED
}
}- long "compile time"

   Long is in the eye of the beholder.  Two-page documents are vanishingly
   fast on even the piggy programmed systems.  500 page documents are a bear,
   but then try doing a 500 page document on your favorite WYSIWYG system.
   I've found that the delay is basically commensurate with the time it takes
   to print the thing.  That is, I don't find the delays in running the
   "compilation" as being particularly signficant compared with the time to
   have the laser printer dump the stuff out and for me to walk to the
   printer room and pick it up, etc.

}- difficult to debug

   Amen!!!  Even a relatively user-friendly system (like SCRIBE) is a pretty
   subtle monster.  Fighting with troff and TeX (my two most frequent
   opponents) is virutally a Black Art.  Makes debugging a busted timesharing
   system using only the testword switches (this on a PDP-1, years ago)
   simple by comparision.  UGH!!!

}- uncertain page breaks
}- many hardcopies are needed to correctly format complex documents

   These two relate to something that is a PET peeve of mine.  Mostly,
   the authors -- the folks pouring out the raw text -- are lucky if
   they can manage sentences with an identifiable verb, and often
   having paragraphs that make sense from one to the next is too much
   to ask for.  That such folk then presume to debate whether a figure
   would be better floated here or there, or if a footnote should have
   been divided in a different place, or if...  or if...  Yes, there
   are _some_ people who are appropriately endlessly frustrated by the
   vagaries and systematic mistakes that the formatters make, but there
   CERTAINLY aren't enough of _them_ around to justify WYSIWYG
   systems.  And I also admit that there are _some_ typographic chores
   (complicated equations or tables, for example) that *are* hard to
   get right.  They're not all that common (unless you're writing a
   textbook on tensor calculus or something like that), and even then a
   good previewer will home you in pretty quickly.  (although around
   here, generally when that happens the job is best left to a "guru"
   for the appropriate system -- they can get REAL close the first
   time, and know the magical incantations it takes to tune things.
   I've never tried to do real hairy tables or formulae or the like in
   a WYSIWYG system, so I'm not sure quite how it goes there)

}- TeX and derivatives are public domain (or close to it)

   This kind of thing turns out to matter quite a lot  -- ever see how
   much a SCRIBE site license costs?  I shudder to think what we could
   have done with the money that has been spent buying zillions of
   copies of various WYSIWYG systems for the MACs that dot the
   landscape around here. Phew!

   __
  /  )                              Bernie Cosell
 /--<  _  __  __   o _              BBN Sys & Tech, Cambridge, MA 02238
/___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_             cosell@bbn.com