Re: getting out of LaTeX


Dik T. Winter wrote:
In article <1156852968.010535.44300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
...
> > It is precisely Tex's flexibility that makes Tex the only
> > tool that can handle Tex source.
...
> Oh, wait -- they don't _sell_ TeX, do they? Then what's the point of
> making it incompatible with what most of the world's typists, and
> cosumers of typing, use?

It was incompatible with most of the software from the time it was
designed, but that was no problem, because it could do what it
was designed to do: typeset large books with much flexibility in
design. It was not designed as a WYSIWYG system, but the sources
were completely in ASCII text with the use of macro's and whatever.
For a long time it was about the only portable system with which
you could produce documents according to the standards of all
publishing houses. Publishing houses like Springer, AMS, etc.
had stylesheets you *must* use when submitting a paper or book.
And, o, it dates from 1983.

There was a word processor something like that, called Nota Bene. Back
in the days of DOS 3.1, it was the only one that could handle
right-to-left text, so it was popular with biblical scholars for a few
weeks. Some even persisted with it until recently, being content
without most of the features we take for granted in word processing.

But when I was getting my first computer, in 1984, unfortunately just
before Apple announced its academic computer policy, they had announced
a major upgrade, so I considered getting whichever machine it would run
on, but they didn't release it for years, and meanwhile I'd gotten the
Kaypro.

I don't see why any one publication needs to be convertible between
Springer and AMS style; one never submits a paper to more than one
journal at a time, and the submitted draft is never identical to the
published product. (If a peer reviewer can't think of _something_ to
complain about, they won't feel they've done their job.)

Unless, of course, you are dealing in nothing but camera-ready copy, in
which case, what's the journal editor's function?

BTW I bought (remaindered, just $14.95) that immense history/survey of
mathematics published a few years ago by Norton, partly because it
might be useful someday but mostly because it presumably stretches all
of TeX's resources to the utmost in presenting at least a couple of
pages on just about every variety of math there is. (Yet it's done in
the hideous Computer Modern despite all the handwork it needed.)

.

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