[geeks] word processing myths (was: nuking from orbit)

[Greg A. Woods]

[[  FOLLOWUP ONLY TO GEEKS!!!!  ]]

[ On Friday, August 31, 2001 at 13:20:16 (-0500), Scott Newell wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] Re: nuking from orbit
>
> I've never used troff, or TeX, for that matter.  It sounds like you have to
> manually insert formatting tags into the text, correct?

Yeah, just like in HTML, WordPerfect, etc., etc., etc.  It's all the
same under the hood, and in most WYSIWYG editors you've got to look
under the hood most of the time anyway.

> I think one reason you'll have a hard time convincing casual users (not
> geeks) to switch is that you're asking them to give up a WYSISYG
> enviroment.

There are *roff WYSIWYG editors, for what that's worth....

>  Seems like a lot of people can't do the mental visualization
> required to predict what something will look like on paper without seeing
> it rendered on the screen.  

That's usually *NOT* the issue (unless the document being prepared is
something where the layout is more imporant than the content, such as
most forms of advertising).

You can teach the average intelligent adult human being to use *roff in
about two hours (and add another half hour for the text editor), and if
they've had any exposure to so-called WYSIWYG word processors they'll
usually thank you for teaching them a better wway for the rest of their
lifetime.

I would highly recommend "lout" though -- it's formatting codes are far
more intelligible and usable than even highly advanced *roff or TeX
macro packages.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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