From: rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner)
Subject: Re: Tex Advantages (was Re: TeX an archaic religion?)
Organization: San Jose State University - Math/CS Dept.
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 15:37:41 GMT

sens@acfcluster.nyu.edu writes:

>In article <1992Aug28.160629.17181@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu>, rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard Warner) writes:
>> hpw@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Harry P Warren) writes:

>[I have edited out the other reader's response to your post, hope you won't
>mind.]


>Your assertion about site- and device-dependence is not true.  Very few people
>write their own macro packages.  They use commonly available packages like
>plain TeX, LaTeX, AMS-TeX, etc.  Have you ever seen a Harvard Plain package? 
>On our VAX cluster, I see one style file called "nyuletter" which prints the
>NYU logo on a letterhead, a style file that would be of very little use outside
>NYU.  Most universities also have macros to format Ph.D. theses according to    
>their guidelines: again, something which is not very useful elsewhere.  This is 
>typically the extent of your alleged site dependence.
 
 This is absolutely incorrect.  I see TeX files being passed around all the
 time that the recipient cannot print or preview because the author forgot
 to send their macro file.  I see at least one a week.

>> OK.  Take your TeX output.  Print it on an HP LaserJet, a QMS 810,
>> a Sun SPARC printer and a Varityper 600.  How many different font sets
>> would this require?  Three (3) - 300 dpi, 400 dpi, and 600 dpi!  You
>> do not consider that device dependence?  How many would FrameMaker
>> or PageMaker require?  One!  And thrown in with that one font I can also
>> output to a 35mm slidemaker at 2K, 4K, or 8K resolution and imagesetters
>> at 1200-2500 dpi (neither of which work very well with TeX).  Device
>> independence, that is the name of the modern typesetting paradigm.
>> TeX is extremely device dependent - it belongs to a previous typesetting 
>> paradigm (bit-mapped page description versus the more current object-mapped
>> page description).

>  The same goes for your points about printing to various printers.  You just
>need the appropriate device driver, just as in other program.  In this case,
>you need a program called dvips to print to the postscript printers you
>mentioned.  In fact, you just need dvips to convert the dvi (stands for DEVICE
>INDEPENDENT) file produced by TeX to a .ps file, and you can print it to any
>postscript printer.  Dvips even supports the built in fonts of the printer, or
>any Adobe type 1 fonts.  It can even generate the necessary bitmapped fonts
>through METAFONT, so you don't need to keep all the megabytes of bitmapped
>fonts on your hard disk.

Wrong.  A dvi file is an intermediate, not the final output.  I would need
to create 100 different final output files for 100 different devices.
With PostScript I need *ONE* final output file.  And the PostScript
formatters for TeX have this nasty habit of creating resolution and 'color'
(write white, write black) dependent output files.  It is not necessary,
but for some reason it happenned.

Please, let's stop comparing oranges to apples.  TeX is device dependent
as any single output file works only with a narrow range of devices.
PostScript output from a program that truly uses the language (and does
not use the 'rasterimage' operator) is what is meant by device
independence. 

>> TeX also eats a lot of disk space.  Disk space is expensive ($2.2 - 4/Mb
>> low end, higher in proprietary systems).  TeX on UNIX systems with 1 font
>> set (1 device type) takes over 20 Mb - that is $50-80 worth of disk space.

>By the way, how much space does TeX really need?  I have installed emTeX,      
>METAFONT and a lot of macros on my pc.  It still takes about 10 megabytes.    
>I generate the fonts on the fly, if I installed all the bitmapped fonts it      
>would have taken another 5-6 megabytes.  All the high end Windows word          
>processors and DTP programs usually take about 15--20 megabytes of space.

I only know of one that takes that much - Word for Windows.  All the rest
are 5-12 Mb.  Please get your facts straight.

>> TeX also requires, at most sites, a great deal of support - and there is
>> no OFFICIAL TeX support.  That means the site has to pay a body to
>> baby-sit TeX.  That is expensive.  Very expensive.  That is why more
>> and more University's are adopting a 'use TeX if you want, but we will
>> not provide ANY support' attitude (I have seen 3 such announcements this
>> week - and I see very few policy statements from other University's).
>> They have discovered that the cost of supporting TeX is much higher than
>> any commercial software; and budgets are lean.

> TeX has no "official", i.e., telephone, support.  Neither has Emacs, GCC,
>Ghostscript, X-Windows, ...  What is your suggestion regarding these other
>softwares?

Nobody brought those up - this whole thread has been TeX vs. real 
word-processors and layout programs.  Please keep to the subject.

>> As I have said privately to several individuals - I am not pushing anyone
>> away from TeX or towards any commercial package.  But TeX, like Forth
>> and APL and a few other things, has become a 'religion' that the true
>> believers think is great. They then try to collect converts to their faith.
>> The problem I have is with the mis-information that is spread in this
>> conversion campaign - like the 'device independence' fallacy.  If you
>> want to follow your 'religion' fine - but please keep to the facts.

>From your various postings, for example the bit about what kind of fonts are
>needed to print TeX output to different printers in the latest message, it
>seems you don't know too much about TeX either.  One could also take issue with
>your view that WYSIWYG programs are somehow more "modern" and markup language
>based programs like TeX are "obsolete".  A structured document preparing tool
>like LaTeX makes more intelligent use of your computer.  You, the user, can
>concentrate on writing the document and let the computer work out the details  
>about formatting, inter word spacing, etc.  A WYSIWYG program is not much
>better than an automated typewriter.  You can produce very nice output with
>Frame, but it is a lot of work and you need to have sound ideas about design
>and typography.  Before you air your paranoia about TeX in public, please make 
>the effort to understand the issues involved.

Absolute BULL pucky.  No matter what you use, your computer is not making
any decisions about formatting.  This is obfuscation.  If you use TeX *you*
are making just as many decisions about formatting as you are with any 
WYSIWYG program.  My statements about fonts is correct - I know more about
TeX than you are willing to admit, I have not 'TeX paranoia', and I am
not sure what private agenda you are trying to further by posting such
blatant misinformation and personal attacks.  If you want to discuss real
issues, and stick to the truth - fine.  Otherwise, forward your replys
to /dev/null.

>-- 


>Sunando Sen 

>Department of Economics                Telephone:(212) 998-8960
>New York University                    Internet: sens@acfcluster.nyu.edu
>269 Mercer Street, 7th Floor           Bitnet:   sens@nyuacf
>New York, NY 10003
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