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From: hyland@esosun.UUCP (Steve Hyland)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: LispScript
Message-ID: <96@kvasir.esosun.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Dec-87 13:17:55 EST
Article-I.D.: kvasir.96
Posted: Tue Dec  1 13:17:55 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Dec-87 20:52:56 EST
References: <17331.8711281826@aiva.ed.ac.uk> <833@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Reply-To: hyland@kvasir.UUCP (Steve Hyland)
Organization: SAIC, San Diego
Lines: 48

In article <833@devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> des@jplpro.JPL.NASA.GOV (David Smyth) writes:

>I was hoping it wasn't just me!  How many others HATE postscript?
>I'll summarize to the net.

I don't HATE PostScript, but I agree that it is unsuitable for humans
to describe a page or document.

>Also, what would be a better language?  PostScript reminds me of an
>intermediate language generated by a compiler, not a language suitable
>for human beings to think in.  I propose a new language which is high
>level, and is then compiled into postscript, with appropriate calls
>to dbg for source level (NOT PostScript) debugging.

PostScript SHOULD be an intermediate language, albeit one generated by
an application such as an editor, in which users can design a page. I
think, for the most part, it is used primarily this way. I don't know
many people who sit down and design a document by writing a PostScript
program.

I think you are confusing the end and the means.

>If you can't think of a specific language (I vote for C, or something
>very much like C), indicate what language capabilities should be there.

Not to trash C or anything, but why on earth would I want to discard
PostScript for a language which is easily as terse as PostScript. If
you happen to program in C, you might find it very natural to describe a
document in a C-like language. I don't program in C, I program in Ada.
However, I'm not going to propose Ada as a candidate, because it would
still require humans to be fluent in that particular language to do something
as natural as describing a document.

If you want a specific language, I think natural language is the sensible
alternative, although difficult to implement. What would be better than:

:Center the page number at the bottom of the page.
:Center the following text and draw a box around it.
Some text to put on the page.
:Make three copies

or something like that.

Even this approach is not nearly as effective as the WYSIWYG editors that
have proliferated and which are capable of printing on a PostScript printer.

Steve Hyland
SAIC