From: "Marc VanHeyningen" <mvanheyn@peach.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
X-Quoted: 53%
Reply-To: mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu
Organization: Computer Science Dept, Indiana University
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 21:30:25 -0500

Thus said mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew):
>"Ken Rawlings" <krawling@banana.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:
>>         There are two relatively simple things that I want to do on a Mac tha
>> I _still_ have no idea how to do, even after reading all of the info-mac
>> digests, and using Mac's extensively. 
>> 
>>         #1: Send a postscript file to the printer. Just shove that baby down
>>             the serial connection to the printer.
>
>Run the SendPS program.  Select the file from the file selector.  Click OK.
>There, that wasn't too hard, was it?
>
>What, you don't have the SendPS program?  Of course Apple don't provide it on
>the system disks. Believe it or not, fooling around with intermediate printer
>dump files is not something most users want to do.
>
>Users want to take documents and print them.  They don't care what
>intermediate printer dump language the printer speaks, be it HPGL,
>Postscript, Laserjet bitmaps or Serbo-Croat.  They don't want to play with
>intermediate printer dump files.  They don't want to half print something on
>one machine, grab the intermediate file, transfer it somewhere else then
>finish the printing somewhere else.  They just want to print documents.

This simply proves the converse of an oft-quoted UNIX philosophy
statement:  Because the Macintosh stops you from doing stupid things, it
also stops you from doing clever things.  Talking directly to the
printer in some sort of raw mode should not require a special
application; at most, it should require a special tool.  If you really
want, you can have a dialog box pop and display something like:


			   WARNING!!!!!

		You are attempting to talk directly to
		the printer in raw mode.  Only a complete
		idiot would attempt a thing like this.
		__________		____________
		| Cancel |		| Yes, I'm |
		|________|		|_an_idiot_|


but it should still be possible.  While this isn't strictly a GUI issue,
I can't think of a non-GUI OS offhand that doesn't allow you to talk
directly to your printer if you want to.

>Apart from anything else, most Mac users don't have Postscript printers. 
>SendPS should be supplied by whoever sold you the printer.  Also, Postscript
>is a damn silly way to supply a document anyway, as it's not editable and not
>device-independent.  You don't even know it'll print on all Postscript
>printers.  Even if it does, how do you know the user has the right size of
>paper?  We don't all use US Legal size paper, you know.
>
>Mantis doesn't have a Postscript printer at all.  But if you give me the
>actual document, I can probably print it; we can handle a list of document
>formats as long as your arm.

Irrelevant.  Many documents, such as TRs, are "published" as Postscript
via FTP.  Flame about it if you like, but it's a fact of life.
-- 
Marc VanHeyningen     mvanheyn@whale.cs.indiana.edu     MIME accepted
You can have my encryption algorithm ... when you pry my cold dead
fingers from its private key.
		- John Barlow
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