Subject: Re: Lisp syntax, what about resynchronization? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/06/09 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3137930870696612@naggum.no> * Fernando Mato Mira <matomira@iname.com> | And I know you don't like LaTeX (and obviously Knuth belongs to the pathetic | `reinvent school', but what choice do I have?). | What can we use then? Any `TexROLLisp' to offer? [It's a real question] the realness of the question is evident, but I don't have time to answer this fully, now. it's fairly involved, which is also why I haven't gotten around to write something about what attracted me to SGML and what made me leave except in commentaries on comp.lang.lisp and comp.text.sgml. what do I use myself? somebody else. a consistent, simple style in plain text makes it possible for skilled typographers to make printed text look very nice. authors generally think they know too much about typography, or if they have the wherewithal to realize they don't, go to extraordinary lengths to make life for typographers needlessly hard. working _inside_ the publishing business also tells you which problems SGML were hoped to solve and their magnitude, but also their reason: most authors don't know jack about the _logistics_ of writing books, much less publishing them. most authors write books like mad generals conduct wars: without concern for how their troops shall get fuel and food and ammo. but if you can't think in terms of logistics, at least have enough respect for those who do that you help them by staying out of their way. I found it wise to get out of the way, not only because it's a horribly _practical_ industry: they just do _whatever_ it takes to get a book out (SGML was like asking miners to use latex gloves so they wouldn't leave finger prints on the ore), but also because SGML couldn't help anybody at the level they actually needed help. SGML is a giant conflation of what was once a noble division of labor, much worse than the incredibly stupid stuff Microsoft thinks is publishing, because Microsoft thinks WYSIWYG is going to make skilled typographers happy (hint: they aren't), but SGML makes authors _aware_ of the structure that had hitherto been implicit, and few authors, except highly skilled technical writers, have any idea what their structure communicates until a _long_ way into writing it (if we're lucky), or them (if we aren't). if you want to consider my web pages in terms of their design, take a look at this excellent explanation of what I didn't know I was doing before visiting them: http://www.webreference.com/dlab/9804/academic.html I have been on both ends of the publishing business: I have published many articles in magazines and newspapers -- never have the editors been happier than when receiving plain text -- and I have helped write the software to make a giant web of mad user input into books -- it is not a pretty sight. so I decided to make my plain text a pretty sight and let somebody else make my plain text into pretty formatted page layout. hope this is a start at an answer, at least. #:Erik -- @1999-07-22T00:37:33Z -- pi billion seconds since the turn of the century