From: mark@taylor.uucp (Mark A. Davis) Subject: Re: Why WYSIWYG is for IQ < 120 Date: Fri, 06 Aug 1993 12:25:40 GMT
tzs@hardy.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:
>>Subsequent analysis indicated that the WYSIWYG group spent a lot of
>>time "prettying" up layout at an early stage of authoring; a good deal
>>of this effort was undone by subsequent changes to the text. The
>>troff group was more or less forbidden to address layout; they used an
>>SGML-flavored set of macros, based on -mm, that automatically
>>determined fonts, header placement, page breaks, etc.
>...
>>more important than content. But for the sort of industrial-strength
>>documentation we do at AT&T, batch markup languages appear to have an
>>advantage.
>This conclusion does not follow from the experiment. All the experiment
>showed was that the people in the WYSIWYG group found it easier to waste
>time.
>A proper comparison would include a group using the WYSISYG software,
>but not bothering with the layout until the end. It is perfectly
>feasible to use a WYSIWYG system that way.
Indeed that is a valid comparison.
What a lot of people have still forgotton is that the issue is **NOT**
Tex vs. WYSIWYG, it is Tex-like vs. WordProcessing vs. Wordprocessing with
WYSIWYG. WordPerfect on a text terminal IS an example of the compromise.
It *IS* a wordprocessing system (unlike Tex), so it does show you what the
text will generally look like and it is very easy to edit. But it is *NOT*
WYSIWYG because it doesn't spend 99% of it's time trying to draw multiple
fonts and graphics inbetween every fourth keystroke. (Please note we
use WP under X Terminals too, and it is WYSIWYG there).
Tim has a very reaslistic outlook. Here, we focus on the document content first,
then move to the X version if necessary to "spruce it up" with strange
layouts and graphics. Or do the same on the text terminal (like WY160) and use
"preview modes" to show what the final layout will look like.
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