From: atk@tigger.cs.colorado.edu (Alan Krantz) Subject: Re: (was: Re: A Word Processor for Linux) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1993 14:31:22 GMT
: dnewcomb@cybernet.cse.fau.edu (Dan Newcombe) writes:
: By the way, I have noticed that old UNIX farts are absolutely
: most conservative persons I've ever met. Not even IBM<tm> :) mainframe
: guys can get close.. They insist on using stone-age programs which they
: think are the best-of-all-time software ever made. First comes to mind
: TeX. I've heard many times how wonderful, flexible and easy-to-use
: system it is. Yea right. I am wondering if this people keep saying
: that TeX, vi, rn and other pieces of antique software are good
: just to emphasize their own experience and to gain acceptance within
: UNIX hacker community.. like silently saying "gee I'm a wizard hacker
: since I can write with vi and TeX eyes closed" etc. etc.
(lots of junk deleted)
Ya know this is a lot of shit. You sound a whole lot worse than the
people you are condemning.
I've used MsWord and MacWrite and TeX. For some things I prefer a
word processor, for most things I prefer TeX and more than once I've
cursed one or the other or both at the same time.
: I am not in my right mind willing to read manual how to center
: one line of text and putting it AvantGarde 16pts italic as long...
So blame us that you're lazy. When you've used both of them you'll be
in a better position to comment. The primary thing i find TeX superior
at (compared to word processors) is laying out complex math equations.
This (I believe) was one of the primary goals the author of TeX had.
I'm not implying that TeX isn't useful for other things (I use it for
most written documents 'cept when my boss makes me use framemaker
:( ) just highlighting an area TeX is superior in when compared
to MsWords, MacWrite and/or FrameMaker.
atk