Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!rpp386!woody
From: woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: PostScript Language
Message-ID: <18028@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 25 Feb 90 06:45:34 GMT
References: <9447@imagen.UUCP> <38910@apple.Apple.COM> <147@heaven.woodside.ca.us> <22520@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Organization: River Parishes Programming, Plano, TX
Lines: 41

In article <22520@unix.cis.pitt.edu>, jbw@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Jingbai  Wang) writes:
> 
> I tend to agree with Glenn (at least on ASCII part). Adobe is one of the
> few successful computer companies founded by advanced degree holders. It
> could affort to use ASCII output format of commands, strings and integer
> as well as floating point numbers, instead of the traditional <ESC>+[+???
> +integer + strings, because the designers knew disk space, ROM and RAM
> would not be a restriction in a long run, and CPU would catch up soon.

You truly think that it requires advanced degrees to figure this out????!!!
Gimme a break,  the degrees mean nothing.  I'm sure that you know the
old saw about  BS degrees, MS degrees( more of the same) and PHD degrees
(Piled High and Deep)..

I'm not running the founders down here, it is just that the degree bit
has no relation whatsoever to success. Just look around you.  There are
LOTS of successful visionaries that never got out of grade school.
 

> 
> ASCII format is good in the sense you can edit, transmit and store in very
> convenient and standard ways. But they are also bad in that there are no
> flags, escapes and others that can allow a programmer to interprete the
> results into other output formats. A full feature parser is nothing but
> a PostScript interpreter which can't be built trivially. On the other hand,
> any other printing languages in other types of printers can be interpreted
> and/or translated to another at very low cost. This made cloning difficult

Certainly.  But can you tell me *RIGHT NOW* without having to go grab a
manual, what the escape sequence for causing an HP Laserjet to move to
coordinates 100 100 and draw a linet to 112.5 301.89?
or howabout telling me how to image a bit map *RIGHT NOW* in Epson or
HP mode?
> 
> In a word, Adobe is successful because the founder could see farther
> than others in the computer industry. ASCII is only a minor point. Actually,

True, but the degrees didn't necessarily enable them to do it.  Remember,
the concept was NOT original with them.  It came from PARC.....

: