Date: Sat, 19 Nov 94 07:33:05 GMT
From: dolan AT fnoc DOT navy DOT mil (Kent Dolan)
To: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: printed docs

> Why don't we put a postscript copy on simtel?

Best reason is because Postscript was designed to be a derivative
format from some appropriate document storage format to a printer
driver script, not a storage format itself.  The obscene bloat of
Postscript files makes their storage as primary document sources an
abuse of hospitality on any system measuring its online storage in less
than terabytes.

As noted elsewhere, it is intensely user-hostile to the user without
Postscript hardcopy capability, being essentially unreadable.  Almost
any steps to kill off the habit of using Postscript to store documents
are justifiable.

Also as noted elsewhere, other word processor formats are equal
headaches.  For best utility across the broad spectrum of the Internet,
you can't just beat flat ASCII.  It may not be pretty, but it works with
the most primitive readers.

The texinfo format, being flat ASCII with embedded ASCII formatting
commands, has the advantage of being readable on any screen with no
more complex tool than "more < doc.texinfo", and if combined with the
freely available GNU info() command, produces a highly useful document
readable on anything that dares call itself a computer.

SGML is probably a good second choice, and will become the first
choice, being a formal standard, as its popularity grows and standard
interpreters (I forget the term of art) become more widely and cheaply
available.  I imitate it in producing documents for WordPerfect (which
I hate) using an ASCII editor that lets me cut and paste easily with
other ASCII files produced in the course of my day, such as source
code.  At the end, half a dozen global replaces in WordPerfect produce a
very dressy document from a very easy to maintain source docuemnt.

Xanthian.  (Cheap opinions at reasonable prices, or was that the other way?)
--
Kent, the man from xanth.
Kent Paul Dolan, CSC contractor at Fleet Numerical.  (408) 656-4363.
(Navy Unix email:   )  (Navy cc:Mail email: )  (real world email:     )
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