Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!att!mtunb!dmt
From: dmt@mtunb.ATT.COM (Dave Tutelman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Is WordPerfect 5.0 any good?
Summary: troff/tex are programming languages
Message-ID: <1371@mtunb.ATT.COM>
Date: 13 Jan 89 13:35:42 GMT
References: <1213@uwovax.uwo.ca> <6206@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <14622@srcsip.UUCP> <7444@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: dmt@mtunb.UUCP (Dave Tutelman)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs - Lincroft, NJ
Lines: 57

In article <7444@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>In article <14622@srcsip.UUCP> rogers@orion.UUCP (Brynn Rogers) writes:
>>
>> I have a qustion for Word processing fans.
>>what can W*** do that makes it better than EMACS ??
>>	  ^^^  substitute favorite  W.P.   ^^^^^  any version.
>
>Probably nothing that couldn't be done by the combination of emacs/vi
>and tex/troff, but the integration of editor/formatter makes it a
>lot easier to use.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) is MORE than just a feature.
It changes the whole nature of things.

Assertion:
	TROFF/TEX IS NOT A WORD PROCESSOR, IT'S A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE.

When I use an editor + troff, I have to DEBUG MY DOCUMENT.  The process
of "debugging" is exactly like debugging a UNIX(tm) shell program
(except when I'm making straightforward use of the MM macros).

When I use a WYSIWYG word processor, I concentrate on the content of
the document (or what I want it to look like), NOT how to tell the
computer what I want it to look like.  The difference is the ability
to just throw something from your keyboard to the screen and know
it will look that way on the page.  The other stuff, like word wrap,
is a frill (powerful, convenient, but not THE central issue).

Just so you can calibrate where I'm coming from, I'm not a novice
who's afraid of a separate formatter and editor; just the opposite.
I like my documents to put a given point across with the way they
present information, not just the words and sentences.  Therefore,
I am in the habit of hacking raw troff into macros to do what I
want. 

Yesterday, I shot an hour while preparing a viewgraph talk,
trying to get troff to give me the point-size changes I wanted
in a page footer.  With Windows WRITE (my current WYSIWYG tool),
I'd have accomplished it in under a minute; just change things till
it looks right on my screen, not the troff way of:
   -	Change the troff program (not document, PROGRAM).
   -	Run the program through the troff interpreter.
   -	Wait till the results come off the printer (4 aisles away,
	but I need the exercise).
   -	Iterate till it's right.

TEX is a little more intuitive than TROFF as a programming language,
but not different in kind (do you prefer C or Pascal?)  Both are
more powerful than the WYSIWYG word processors I use, but they're
programming languages, NOT word processors.

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|    Dave Tutelman						|
|    Physical - AT&T Bell Labs  -  Lincroft, NJ			|
|    Logical -  ...att!mtunb!dmt				|
|    Audible -  (201) 576 2442					|
+---------------------------------------------------------------+