From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) Subject: Re: Why WYSIWYG is for IQ < 120 Date: 5 Aug 1993 17:48:40 -0700
jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) writes:
> While this is fine for a production environment, you'll notice the
>article makes no mention of the time it took to program the -mm macro
There are literally thousands of style files on the net. I have never
written a .sty in my life yet, just used existing style files with
defined options. I still don't know how to "program" TeX.
> Another thing I'd like to know is what do you do in TeX if you don't
>want Computer Modern, but a non-serif helvitica, or some other font? I
psfonts.sty is standard equipment.
> I think TeX is very good for what it was designed for, but also
>think that there is a place for a word processor as well, and implying
>that only losers and morons use them says more about the person making
>the claim.
There is indeed a miniscule amount of "intellectual abstraction"
involved in saying
{\bf in boldface}
rather than the process of marking "in boldface" with a mouse, going
up, selecting a menu, choosing bold. Most consumers of the PC
industry do not possess what it takes to indulge in such feats of
genius. Perhaps they are the same people who couldn't fathom
euclidian geometry at high school :-), or perhaps they have been conned
by years of Microsoft marketing which told them "Computers are Easy:
it's the job of computers to come to you, not your job to pay any
effort whatsoever in learning computers". In such a marketing
environment, consumers become pushovers, unwilling to invest any
time and effort in learning systems.
-ans.
-- Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@rcf.usc.edu