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From: faus...@cad.UUCP (Wayne A. Christopher)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <30@cad.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Dec-85 03:12:33 EST
Article-I.D.: cad.30
Posted: Fri Dec 20 03:12:33 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Dec-85 00:12:22 EST
References: <2252@glacier.ARPA> <927@mcvax.UUCP>
Organization: U. C. Berkeley CAD Group
Lines: 16
Let me toss in my 2 cents worth... It seems that a lot of people are
thinking of a WYSIWYG system as something that will completely reformat
the page displayed every time you type a character. Certainly this isn't
the correct thing -- when I am going to type 10 pages of straight text,
I don't care what it will look like. I do want an interactive system,
however, when I am done and I'm previewing the stuff. If I want a bit
more space here, or a word a little more over to one side, I don't
want to have to go back to the source and figure out exactly how
to do it, I want to point a mouse at the place I want to change and
do it, and have the editor figure out what to put in the source.
This is especially important for things like signs and flyers, where
exactly where things go is of utmost importance. Trying to sit down
and figure out what to tell troff to make a flyer look good is not
a good thing...
Wayne
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From: k...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <11272@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 20-Dec-85 16:07:41 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11272
Posted: Fri Dec 20 16:07:41 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Dec-85 00:13:27 EST
References: <2252@glacier.ARPA> <927@mcvax.UUCP> <30@cad.UUCP>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 26
Summary: Another angle to this discussion
There's an interesting arguement to be made for WYSIWYG editors that I've
yet to see in this discussion. When composing on a WYSIWYG system (as
I do), I find that I'm much more creative. Because I can interactively
get a feel for what my essay (paper, thesis, whatever) is going to look
like as I type it, I find I tend to write better. Whether this is the
case for everyone, most people, or just a personal thing with me
I really couldn't say. But whatever the reason, I'm staying with my
mac over TeX, Scribe, etc. etc. for essays, and other such creative works.
This has no bearing (of course, but I figure, if I can stop a flame...:-)
on the output. I use a LaserWriter b/c my Profs will accept it (and actually
much prefer it to typewritten material). With the Linotronic 300P, and
2540 dpi resolution (well beyond an earlier mentioned 600 dpi) driven by
PostScript, all that I'm waiting for is a combo of PageMaker, MacDraw,
MS-Word, and a 68020 running at > 16 Mhz. True, I'm a *novice* when it
comes to typesetting, but typesetting output isn't the direction I'm
heading in (although physical quality of the output will come in months),
nor am I (as the author of a creative work) that interested in rivers,
et. al. I'd pay a typesetter to do that. If my computer, that's already
WYSIWYG b/c I compose better on it can do all that automatically, or
has a preset idea that I can learn to fiddle with (open up the hood and
poke around), I'd be in heaven.
-----
Peter Korn k...@Berkeley.LotsONets !ucbvax!korn
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hplabs!intelca!glacier!reid
From: r...@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <2581@glacier.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 21-Dec-85 00:37:26 EST
Article-I.D.: glacier.2581
Posted: Sat Dec 21 00:37:26 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Dec-85 00:17:20 EST
References: <2252@glacier.ARPA> <927@mcvax.UUCP> <30@cad.UUCP>
<11272@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: r...@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 12
In article <11...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Peter Korn writes:
> Because I can interactively
>get a feel for what my essay (paper, thesis, whatever) is going to look
>like as I type it, I find I tend to write better.
This, to me, is one of the strongest reasons why I don't use or like WYSIWYG.
I prefer to concentrate on what my words say, and not on what they look like,
and I want a display that will not distract me with glittery appearance
while I am working on content.
--
Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid
Stanford r...@SU-Glacier.ARPA
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sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!sun!chuq
From: c...@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <3088@sun.uucp>
Date: Sat, 21-Dec-85 23:25:58 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.3088
Posted: Sat Dec 21 23:25:58 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 00:26:56 EST
References: <2252@glacier.ARPA> <927@mcvax.UUCP> <30@cad.UUCP>
<11272@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <2581@glacier.ARPA>
Organization: Sun Micro -- NFS Consulting Group
Lines: 46
>> [Peter Korn]
>> Because I can interactively
>>get a feel for what my essay (paper, thesis, whatever) is going to look
>>like as I type it, I find I tend to write better.
> [Brian Reed]
>This, to me, is one of the strongest reasons why I don't use or like WYSIWYG.
>I prefer to concentrate on what my words say, and not on what they look like,
>and I want a display that will not distract me with glittery appearance
>while I am working on content.
[me]
Brian's comments are a non-argument. I could say the same for something like
troff where I have to worry about typing in arcane runes to build up my
glittery appearance (I've been spending the last week typing "\fB" and "\fR"
and "\s+6" and "\s0" to do just that....)
I find that when using either form (my primary writing tool is a Mac, my
secondary is a Sun running troff, and I'm slowly beating Interleaf into
submission) the writing process falls into two stages: content and appearance.
My first pass gets the words right, my second pass gets them nice. I can do it
equally well on either form. You just have to learn to leave the fancy stuff
alone in a WYSIWYG system until you need it. Once I start dealing with the
fancy stuff, though, the Mac tends to be about five times as productive for
me. I tend to define a troff style formatting session as iterative
(edit-format-review) and a Mac session as recursive -- since you see the
format change and can review as you edit, you can modify the editing procedure
as you go.
There are tradeoffs to both systems. I'm never quite happy with my troff
because I usually quit fine-tuning it before I really want to because I'm
tired of the iterative process -- the "good enough" threshold is lower. The
Mac stuff, on the other hand, can be an infinite process because you spend
your time getting it right to the last pixel (infinite recursion...).
This discussion is actually a religious one. A system is "better" because it
works best for your mindset. I don't think that there is any one "right" text
formatting scheme any more than there is any one right programming language.
Just because I'm better in C and MacWrite doesn't mean that Brian can't write
equivalent stuff in Cobol and troff, or fortran and TeX. And there are times
when any one of those tools is most appropriate, too.
--
:From catacombs of Castle Tarot: Chuq Von Rospach
sun!c...@decwrl.DEC.COM {hplabs,ihnp4,nsc,pyramid}!sun!chuq
Power ennobles. Absolute power ennobles absolutely.
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decvax!decwrl!glacier!reid
From: r...@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <2592@glacier.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 22-Dec-85 15:48:04 EST
Article-I.D.: glacier.2592
Posted: Sun Dec 22 15:48:04 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 00:58:39 EST
Reply-To: r...@su-glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 83
Whoa. Chuq tells me that what I say is not an argument. That's true. It was
an explanation. Never once have I claimed that people who use WYSIWYG
systems are wrong or stupid or immoral, or at least more so than people who
don't. What I have done is offered several claims that WYSIWYG systems are
NOT the way of the future, and specifically that they are not an improvement
over earlier ways of doing things. WYSIWYG systems do provide functionality
that was not present in compiler-model systems, but they do so at the cost
of omitting significant other capabilities.
WYSIWYG systems are better for these kinds of things:
* Situations where the author has responsibility for the design and
appearance of the final document.
* Situations where the details of the appearance are an important part of
the presentation, and must therefore be considered in conjunction with the
content (e.g. advertisements, bulletin boards, signs).
* Material that is unlikely to be re-used or re-published in a different
format than it is currently being produced in.
* Documents whose structure is not important, or at least where it is
unlikely to change much if it is important.
Compiler-model systems are better for these kinds of things:
* Situations where someone besides author has responsibility for the
design and appearance of the final document, especially if the author has
opinions in this area and might try to manipulate the appearance anyhow.
* Situations where the details of the appearance are secondary, and the
content is the primary means of communication (e.g. textbooks, memoranda)
* Material that is likely to be re-used in a different format or context.
For example, a paper that you are writing could become a chapter in a book
or an appendix in a research proposal. It would be unfortunate to have to
edit the paper just to change its appearance to the new format.
* Documents where structure is important, or where the structure is likely
to change significantly during the life of the document. For example, if you
move three sections from Chapter 2 to Chapter 7, will they automatically
renumber themselves from 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 into 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3, or will
somebody have to do that by hand? If the Preface says "Please see Chapter 2
for details" and then somebody moves those details to Chapter 7, will the
Preface automatically change to read "Please see Chapter 7 for details"?
Compiler-model systems can do things like that easily; WYSIWYG systems in
general cannot.
Now, there are different compiler-model systems around. On this UNIX net we
like to talk about Troff, Scribe, and TeX. There is also IBM's GML, and
their idiotic "generalization" of it called SGML that IBM is trying to push
as an international standard (and succeeding, alas, in Europe--Europeans
really like SGML). There is IBM Script and Waterloo Script and Univac DPS
and Montreal's Compo and UBC's Texture and III's PageIII. Xerox has a
bizarre and wonderful language called Interscript. There are dozens and
dozens more.
Arguments about WYSIWYG vs. compiler-model systems are not equivalent to
arguments about whether "make that word be italic" or "\fIword\fR" is the
right way to ask for an italic word. There certainly is a language issue, of
what is the best way to record the appearance-independent properties of
documents, that is important, and that they WYSIWYG people ignore
completely.
In 1975-76 I took my best ideas for how to do this and encapsulated them in
Scribe; it hasn't changed much since then. My ideas have. Ignoring whether
or not there are bugs in the Scribe compiler, or in the Unilogic scribe
compiler (Mark of the Unicorn isn't allowed to call theirs Scribe or they
will get sued, but it is roughly the same language), I claim that still, 10
years later, the Scribe document representation language, and its imitators
such as LaTeX and Final Word and Perfect Writer, are one of the best schemes
for representing documents. Perhaps my original compiler for this language
is not the world's best formatting compiler, but it more or less works.
We're not discussing compilers, though, we're discussing paradigms, and the
"document as abstract language" paradigm, as represented by Scribe, LaTex,
Final Word, Perfect Writer, is alive and well and useful. It's time for
somebody to design a newer better abstract document language and write a
good compiler for it.
--
Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid
Stanford r...@SU-Glacier.ARPA
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decvax!decwrl!ucbvax!korn
From: k...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <11287@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 23-Dec-85 18:17:17 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11287
Posted: Mon Dec 23 18:17:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 01:48:07 EST
References: <2592@glacier.ARPA>
Reply-To: k...@ucbvax.UUCP (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 48
In article <2...@glacier.ARPA> r...@su-glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes:
>...... What I have done is offered several claims that WYSIWYG systems are
>NOT the way of the future, and specifically that they are not an improvement
>over earlier ways of doing things. WYSIWYG systems do provide functionality
>that was not present in compiler-model systems, but they do so at the cost
>of omitting significant other capabilities.
>.
>.
>Compiler-model systems are better for these kinds of things:
>
> * Situations where someone besides author has responsibility for the
>design and appearance of the final document, especially if the author has
>opinions in this area and might try to manipulate the appearance anyhow.
>
> * Situations where the details of the appearance are secondary, and the
>content is the primary means of communication (e.g. textbooks, memoranda)
>
> * Material that is likely to be re-used in a different format or context.
>For example, a paper that you are writing could become a chapter in a book
>or an appendix in a research proposal...
>.
>.
> * Documents where structure is important, or where the structure is likely
>to change significantly during the life of the document.
>.
>.
I agree and I disagree, Brian. Given _current_ WYSIWYG and compiler-oriented
editors, yes, compiler-oriented systems are still the best paradigm for
those four catagories above (and probably others too). But the trend in
the field of computing has been "make the computer come closer to the human".
I believe this will be the case with editors, so that, four years from now,
very few people will be using un-mnemonic (or even truely mnemonic) commands
to format their text. Rather I think we'll see mostly partial-WYSIWYG editors
(the type that show *most* of the changes as you type, but save the highly
computational ones until told to do them). By the time that everyone has
a CRAY on their desk... Given the increases in computing power that we can
in all reasonableness [can I reasonably use that work? :-)] expect, I don't
see why WYSIWYG wouldn't become the standard. With the exception of
transportability between several users, all of WYSIWYG's problems will go
away with computing power. Further, programs that would convert between
WYSIWYG_foo and WYSIWYG_bar wouldn't be too hard to write (I wouldn't think).
So, given this, I don't understand *why* you feel that compiler-oriented
editors will be the wave of the future? The only reason not brought up that
I can think of would be "more people would prefer to use commands". I'd
rather leave that one up to a pollster!
Peter
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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!jenny
From: je...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Kathryn Hargreaves)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Dichotomy in text formatting.
Message-ID: <11294@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Tue, 24-Dec-85 20:27:52 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11294
Posted: Tue Dec 24 20:27:52 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Dec-85 23:21:18 EST
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 22
Keywords: WYSIWYG, WYSIAYG, batch, interactive.
First, a minor quibble: WYSIWYG systems are not good for
professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as
Brian Reid mentions in his list. At least, no type shop I
know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like
to start producing their ads.
Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and
the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting
shop. The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et. al. systems
have input files that look similar to the compiler
formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much
higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so
the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the
2400 dpi typesetter to print it.
Not that any computer systems folks (including me) are likely
to have such things on their desks soon (the cheapest one I
saw was about $8,000, I think.) but I thought I'd point out
that TeX, troff, Scribe, and laser printers are not the
be-all and end-all of typesetting.
ucbvax!jenny je...@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
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uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!mako!jans
From: j...@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <990@mako.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25-Dec-85 13:28:46 EST
Article-I.D.: mako.990
Posted: Wed Dec 25 13:28:46 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Dec-85 00:20:55 EST
References: <2592@glacier.ARPA> <11287@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: j...@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 19
Summary:
Although I haven't read each and every posting on this discussion, one of the
things Brian (et. al., anti-WYSIWYG) seems to miss is that the two styles could
peacefully co-exist.
Take, for instance, Richard Stallman's GNU emacs. It is best known as a
WYSIWYG text editor, however, it also has a text-manipulation language and can
actually be run "batch", that is, feed it a text file and a command file and
let it work. To really see this in action, watch the build procedure, when
emacs actually compiles portions of itself into itself.
There are valid arguments for each style of text layout programs, so why argue
which is best? Why not work at rolling them together? I think the ultimate
would be a Mac-like WYSIWYG human interface, except what you do is recorded in
a text-manipulation language and can be "cut" and "pasted", only with
parameters, global settings, etc.
--
:::::: Artificial Intelligence Machines --- Smalltalk Project ::::::
:::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 60-405 (w)503/685-2956 ::::::
:::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::
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bellcore!decvax!decwrl!glacier!reid
From: r...@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <2643@glacier.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 26-Dec-85 12:32:09 EST
Article-I.D.: glacier.2643
Posted: Thu Dec 26 12:32:09 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Dec-85 01:30:23 EST
References: <2592@glacier.ARPA> <11287@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <990@mako.UUCP>
Reply-To: r...@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 22
In article <9...@mako.UUCP> j...@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman) writes:
>Take, for instance, Richard Stallman's GNU emacs. It is best known as a
>WYSIWYG text editor, however, it also has a text-manipulation language
>and...
Part of the problem is that a lot of people use different meaning for the
words. Emacs is not a WYSIWYG editor. It is a display editor. It happens to
be a programmable display editor, which is where the fuzziness comes from. I
don't think that any editor that cannot display and manipulate multiple
fonts in multiple sizes ought to be called a WYSIWYG editor for the purposes
of this discussion. I use Emacs to edit my Scribe source files because I
like the way that Emacs keeps the paragraphs on my screen justified, but
what I see on my screen bears no resemblance to what I am going to get when
I print it.
I claim, by the way, that it is an intrinsic contradiction for WYSIWYG
formatters and compiled formatters to co-exist. At least as I am arguing
them, the coexistence is a meaningless concept. If I find the energy and the
time soon I will post an explanation as to why this is so.
--
Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid
Stanford r...@SU-Glacier.ARPA
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bellcore!decvax!decwrl!glacier!reid
From: r...@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: Dichotomy in text formatting.
Message-ID: <2644@glacier.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 26-Dec-85 12:53:18 EST
Article-I.D.: glacier.2644
Posted: Thu Dec 26 12:53:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Dec-85 01:30:38 EST
References: <11294@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: r...@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 63
Keywords: WYSIWYG, WYSIAYG, batch, interactive.
In article <11294@ucbvax> jenny@ucbvax (Kathryn Hargreaves) writes:
>First, a minor quibble: WYSIWYG systems are not good for
>professional quality advertising, signs, and so forth, as
>Brian Reid mentions in his list. At least, no type shop I
>know is going to start using Macintoshes or Suns or the like
>to start producing their ads.
I guess you and I hang out in different advertising shops. All of the
with-it, cutting-edge graphics shops that I know of use Macs and Suns and
stuff like that right now. I know of 3 professional graphics shops that have
*no other equipment* than a few Macs, a LaserWriter, and a stat camera.
Admittedly these shops aren't doing corporate annual reports, but they are
making truckloads of money doing newspaper ads, political flyers, direct
mail, and other bread-and-butter applications.
I predict that any type shop that DOESN'T use WYSIWYG systems to some extent
is going to be out of business in 3 to 5 years. Even today it is difficult
to remain competitive against the Macs and the Suns when all you are using
is knives and wax. Admittedly top-quality color still cannot be done online
except with ultra-expensive Sci-Tek equipment.
>Second, yes, systems that combine the compiler approach and
>the interactive one exist---in practically every typesetting
>shop. The Compugraphic, Varityper, Alphatype, et. al. systems
>have input files that look similar to the compiler
>formatters---but they also have dedicated displays (at much
>higher resolutions than Suns or such, for the most part.) so
>the operator can see what (s)he is getting before using the
>2400 dpi typesetter to print it.
Minor quibble: I don't believe you about the "much higher resolution than
Suns". Most of the pros use the same CRT that Sun uses, or at least a
green-phosphor variation of it. To get a CRT that is physically capable of
"much higher resolution" requires an order of magnitude more dollars. There
exist CRTs that can show 4000 x 4000 pixels on the screen (4 times the
resolution of a Sun) but the CRT's alone (never mind the electronics and
computer to connect to them) cost upwards of $10,000.
Major quibble: I don't give a hoot what commands you type to change the
screen. The pro systems are all shackled by people who have spent years
typing "quad left" "leading 14 points" "hanging indent" "go", and they want
to keep typing that. If what you see on the screen is a mockup of what the
page is going to look like, then you have a pure WYSIWYG system regardless
of what you type to it. Almost by definition. But the commercial systems
absolutely cannot meet my criteria for a good compiler-model system that I
posted earlier (automatic renumbering and cross-referencing, automatic
reformatting into different styles, etc.). If you think you have seen one
that can, please tell me exactly what it is and I will get on the next jet
plane to go look at it.
Closing observation: Kodak has recently started going for the throat of the
professional type shops. They are aggressively marketing an in-plant
publishing system that uses a repackaged Imagen laser printer and Sun
workstation, both sporting new Kodak nameplates, that will let companies
work without the benefit of pro type shops. I think this is wonderful,
because it might finally kick the moribund, low-tech graphic arts industry
in the behind hard enough to get them to move into the 1980's. I don't think
the Kodak system by itself is good enough to do this kick, but it's great to
see those salesmen out there pounding the pavement trying.
--
Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid
Stanford r...@SU-Glacier.ARPA
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From: j...@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Newsgroups: net.text
Subject: Re: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <992@mako.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Dec-85 01:08:14 EST
Article-I.D.: mako.992
Posted: Mon Dec 30 01:08:14 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Jan-86 00:29:02 EST
References: <2592@glacier.ARPA> <11287@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <990@mako.UUCP>
<2643@glacier.ARPA>
Reply-To: j...@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 24
Summary:
In article <2...@glacier.ARPA> r...@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes:
>In article <9...@mako.UUCP> j...@mako.UUCP (Jan Steinman) writes:
>>Take, for instance, Richard Stallman's GNU emacs. It is best known as a
>>WYSIWYG text editor, however, it also has a text-manipulation language...
>
>Emacs is not a WYSIWYG editor. It is a display editor...
Semantics, semantics! Emacs is a WYSIWYG /text editor\ as opposed to a /text
formatter\. You type a character, it appears on the screen as a graphical
representation of that character's position in the file. What-you-see-is-what-
you-get, clear and simple.
There exists another class of tools, which I will call /text formatters\, that
describe certain /attributes\ of text, as opposed to a mere ASCII
interpretation of that text. My point, which one completely missed, and Brian
obfuscated, is that there should be an "emacs" of the text-formatter world --
a WYSIWYG formatter with a tightly integrated attribute description language.
Like Peter (love your middle name!) Korn, I am anxiously awaiting Brian's
thoughts on why this is impossible.
--
:::::: Artificial Intelligence Machines --- Smalltalk Project ::::::
:::::: Jan Steinman Box 1000, MS 60-405 (w)503/685-2956 ::::::
:::::: tektronix!tekecs!jans Wilsonville, OR 97070 (h)503/657-7703 ::::::