[geeks] better word-processing previewing....

[Reagen B. Ward]

Joshua D Boyd wrote:

> I would think that Apple, having access to all the DisplayPostscript code
> would be able to very rapidly create a new DisplayGhostscript using the
> DisplayPostscript code as a reference.  

Or just use a PS reference book.

> I mean, Apple doesn't own Postscript, but if you take DisplayPostscript,
> and subtract the Postscript, they would own the remainder, wouldn't
> they?  And that remander would hopefully have been written well enough to
> give them a jumpstart on a new DisplayGhostscript.

Well, if you yank out the PS from NeXTStep's DPS, you just have the display
portion, and that part won't be very different whether it's DPS, DDVI, DPDF,
or whatever.

> As it was, they didn't license PDF, but instead did it from scratch, so
> being able to reuse Ghostscript should have been a help, unless
> Ghostscript is really crap?

Ghostscript is far from fast, and I've had problems with some of its
interpretation.  DGS is very X centric (by design), and I imagine that
it was a lot easier to use pre-existing objects than to convert and
optimize someone else's code.

Yup, Apple did it from scratch, but it was easy.  They already had nice PDF
objects to build upon, and there's no benefit to going with DGS over DPDF.
Plus, PDF is recognizeable to the masses, PS is not.  When you need to 
market your product, it's good to use things the market recognizes.

Reagen