Re: PostScript?

["David_A Cobb" <d_a_cobb@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>there are several formatting engines written in PostScript, by the
>way, so this might not be as hard as it sounds. but PDF is purely
>declarative, no programming language, so you cannot pull the same
>tricks. you have to write an entire text formatter in the

This might be a good place to jump in.  Pardon the basic character,
I'm a stranger here myself.

PostScript is a programming language for a class of printers and, in 
later versions displays.  That is for Adobe interpreters and clones 
embedded in a device.  As such it is absolutely dandy IMHO.

But it was never intended for human consumption that I can see.  It is 
extraordinarily tough to program in.  If I look at what my word 
processor generates it is ugly as sin (even uglier than LISP).  

It DOES NOT express "what" I want to print, but "how" the printer engine 
is to render bits on a "page."

Now TeX, with which I have only the most passing acquaintance, is a tool 
for humans to use to express what they want on a page.  Not the same 
kind of critter at all.

I see the list members talk about PDL ("page description language?") as 
a specific language - not a generic description.  I would really 
appreciate being pointed toward the spec/description of that.  If it is 
another language for describing what the human wishes to see, then again 
it doesn't seem like the same kind of critter as PostScript.

In its proper domain, I happen to think PostScript (level 2) is the 
swellest thing since sliced bread.  But it takes a pretty hot printer 
processor to render it - a good place for a powerful vector processor 
with all that matrix transformation.  In an industry that so often 
defies logic, faster and cheaper processors are available but PostScript 
stays in the very high end devices.  Maybe it's one more proof that good 
marketing of mediocre products will always win out over great 
engineering - ask the folks at Studebaker.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David A. Cobb, Software Engineer  <D_A_Cobb@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Coming to a Net near you courtesy of the
Cranston Public Library <http://seq.clan.lib.ri.us/cra/index.htm>
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