Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!jbw
From: jbw@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Jingbai  Wang)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: PostScript Language
Message-ID: <22544@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Date: 26 Feb 90 00:19:44 GMT
References: <9447@imagen.UUCP> <38910@apple.Apple.COM> <147@heaven.woodside.ca.us> <22520@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <18028@rpp386.cactus.org>
Reply-To: jbw@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Jingbai  Wang)
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services
Lines: 94

In article <18028@rpp386.cactus.org|> woody@rpp386.cactus.org (Woodrow Baker) writes:
|>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
|>...
|>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.

I don't want to engage in a degree war with computer world, because I realized
in my job hunting effort that 95% of computer jobs are offered to BS or below,
MS might find a job, Ph.D. almost no way. But, if you turn back to educational
systems, you can clearly see that the more advanced the degree program you are
in the further you are from reality of today. In other words, many technologies
to be used 10-50 years later, are today's research topics in advanced degree
programs. Actually, advanced degree programs are designed to train a student
the ability to look far forward instead teaching you how to design a specific
steam engine. It is well known that many inventions were made by ones with
little formal education, and many great enterpricer have not got enough 
education. In I.E. classes, people often talk about Lotus Development founder 
and Basic language creator, or former
Apple Computer founders. Seldom do people talk about Adobe founders. By 
advanced degrees here, what I want to say is really they are not only 
technically excellent and trained to see at least 10-20 twenty years down the
road in such a rapidly developing industry, but they also could guide the
market and other developers successfully in long term point of view.
On the other hand, IBM forced other smaller computer manufacturers to use
DOS and Intel chips just because they are strong and big. Do you see long term
views in Lotus? and Apple computers then?

I am not saying that everybody has to get advanced degrees, but advanced
degree training did bring computer industry good, and Adobe is a good example.
By the way, TeX's author Don Knuth and Scribe's inventor Brian Reid are also
Ph.D.'s. I definitely do not agree to the ways the stories of Lotus are told in
the class to encourage people to quit BS to start a company to become a
millionair. 


|>|> 
|>|> 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?

No, I can't. You can't do it with PostScript either. I did not say traditional
escape manner was good for output, PostScript is certainly much more powerful.
But, ten years ago, with only 16k RAM in a Radio Shark TRS 80, and a tape
recorder to store data at 300 baud, those formats might be the most compact and
economic ones.

|>|> 
|>|> 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.....
|>
|>:


I thought I did point out that most of PostScript ideas and algorithms 
existed before its birth. But who really put them in market step by step?
Why did not they hesitate when so many people were shouting that PostScript
printing was so slow and expensive? Why did they not change ASCII format
into space-saving binary+flag+escape format when everybody was complaining
that network and disk spaces are jammed? 

No, I don't think their degrees directly brought them to that point, but the
way they were trained in the advanced degrees did.

Folks, it is not steam engine's age now. Even if degrees are not important,
formal trainning and education are important. This does not mean Ph.D.'s
are more important than BS's. They are important in their own different
aspects, otherwise is not it redundant to have different levels of education?
It has become manditory to go through high school in many nations, but it
won't become true to Ph.D. in 1000 years.


JB Wang