CompuServe Messages

Knuth was mistaken – for obvious reasons. He only had one goal. What TeX is, is a language that can create _documents_, not just “books''. If they contain math, so much the better, it won't break a sweat. But it can also handle just about any font you can dream up, and the AmigaTex version in particular handles EPS postscript, postscript fonts, and a bunch more. I don't “typeset'' when I use TeX. I simply create my document as a text file, bold things, italicise things, mark TOC and index entries, mark cross references and lables, etc. The same thing syou do – or wish you could do – in WP or any other program designed to create a document as output. Saying TeX is a “typesetting program'' is like saying WP is a text editor. Sure it is. It's also about anything else you care to name. I'm not at ALL arguing with your idea that it's comfortable for a programmer's mentality, I'd agree 100%. It's logical, clean, well organized, extremely powerful and extensible, and it can be complex as h*ll if that's how you want to use it. Me, I don't use it that way… I don't have the time. All the things I mentioned there – logical, clean… extensible; these things don't apply to WP, and that's why I think WP is swamprot. I could NOT make WP create a document that I liked. I had to use what THEY thought a TOC should look like, ditto index, and for xrefs… tough patooties. Something else here… TeX isn't all there is to it. There's LaTeX, which is mega powerful, but mucho profundo easier to use than TeX. And that is generally what I use (LaTeX). If I need to “dip into'' TeX itself, I do it, but generally I don't need to. Isn't it amazing that a prepackaged, “watered down'' TeX environment (LaTeX) can still totally wipe out WP? Sure is to me, when I hear people going on about WP and how useful it is. From my position, if you know nothing about computers, and you WANT to know nothing about computers, and you won't or can't learn, then WP is ideal for you. It seems to have been written by people who meet the same description, at least in the case of the Amiga version.