From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: Sys 6 and Transprog
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 20:49:40 GMT

In article <1992Apr17.032046.15675@en.ecn.purdue.edu> platkus@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Shawn W Platkus) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.115015.24737@utstat.uucp> philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough) writes:
>>In article <m0lYNWV-0000KjC@crash.cts.com> kimba@gnh-cathouse.cts.com (Kim Brennan) writes:
>>
>>[ ]
>>> 
>>>You would more LIKELY proceed along these lines...
>>>1) Figure out what formulas are needed.
>>>2) Create the formulas in Formulate. (each separately of course)
>>>3) Save each formulate (in quickdraw form).
>>>4) Enter AWGS (if using Quickdraw form) or GW III (if using SHR form) and
>>>compose your document.
>>
>>This way seems totally unacceptable to be. That's why Formulate GS should be
>>an NDA. You don't want to save things like alpha sup 2 sub k . Basically in
>>typing most technical documents you'd have removed 1/3 of the document. Worse,
>>this 1/3rd would be scattered all over the place.
>>
>>Philip
>>philip@utstat.toronto.edu
>
>
>What are you talking about?  You won't have 1/3 the doc removed or all over
>the place.  Simply cut the formula out of formulate and paste it into your
>document.  Or, if you have a lot of formulas, simply create them all at once
>in Formulate, and then save them all to the RAM disk, and the as you type the
>doc, import them into it at the right places.  Then save the document, and
>forget about the stuff on the RAM disk.  Then you have everything in one
>document, and its just as simple as having Formulate in a desk accessory plus
>it doesn't hog all that memory that the DA would.
>

Sorry for not editing this out but I do feel this is important. First let me
ask where GS TeX is, as that is the proper way to handle mathematical
documents.

Now to get back to Formulate. As it is now, or until GNO can handle 2 
desktop processes, I consider this program to be of no use whatsoever. It
has potential and would be very useful as an NDA.

I make my living writing mathematical articles that few read. To consider
going through the documents and saving all equations, super/subscripts,etc...
is simply unacceptable. You might as well take the GS back to the days when
I used slide rulers. Believe me, this is not the way to handle mathematical
documents. In fact it's so bad, that people would fall into a bad habit
approaching things this way. What the heck would you do with all the 
mathematical symbols appearing in text, possibly with double sub/supers? Save
them to a file? Only to paste them in later? This is simply crazy.

You claim to be able to simply cut the formulas/symbols/etc...out of Formulate
and paste them into the document. Is this document open somewhere? The proper
way to do it is via an NDA.

In any case, if the demo of Formulate is what I think it is, and the author 
won't turn it into an NDA then I view it as a waste. On the other hand
turning it into an NDA would make it a valuable addition to the GS sw
collection.

Sorry to sound so down on this, but I've been playing with these things for
20 years. I've beta tested equation editors and technical word processors
for both the Mac and the NeXT. I'm not saying I know everything on the topic.
I do know, though, what one shouldn't do. 

As it stands there's TeX, various equations editors on the Mac/Windows,
MathWriter Pro on the Mac( a  technical wp), EQN, FrameMaker and some would
claim Word, WP, AmiPro,etc...TeX is by far the best. An equation editor
for the GS would be great as an NDA. As it is, we have no way of typing 
a technical document on the GS without returning to the Middle Ages.

Philip McDunnough
philip@utstat.toronto.edu

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