Re: GUI for Lout

[Valeriy E. Ushakov]

On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 00:24:51 -0400, Steven Baker wrote:

> A number (quite a large number, actually) of the TeX users are quite
> adament about hating LyX because it is ``impure'' because TeX is
> made to be typed by hand...  I thought many might say the same thing
> about this.  Good to know it won't be unwelcome.

Lout _standard packages_ *are* made to be typed by hand.  This doesn't
imply that I hate Lout GUI offhand, it's just a fact - a lot of stuff
in standard Lout packages is *because* of humans.

But Lout itself is, in my opinion, has a great potential as a
target format.


> I also will be very careful not to fall victim to the
> generated-file-cannot-be-read-by-humans-overload-syndrome that we
> see from most files that are automagically generated (see yacc and
> lex for an example of this!),

Huh!  Do you really care?! yacc/lex get job done - whatever happens
under the hood is mostly irrelevant.

Also TeX backend to Jade spews stuff that is a HORROR to behold, but
as long as it works - no-one cares.


> Basically, if I write a document in the word processor and look at
> the source in a month, I want to have to *wonder* if I used the word
> processor or not. :)

You don't typically hack on assembler output from your compiler and
don't feed it back to compiler, either, do you? ;-)


> Lout, on the other hand is elegant, unobtrusive, and works well in
> both large and small documents---I want the editor to reflect this.

Ain't you reversing cause and effect here?  Since Lout seems elegant
for you (I hope so), use Lout elegance to express editor concepts in
an elegant fashion, not vice-versa.  Write a good editor and then use
whatever it takes to get printed output - if Lout is good - good for
you.

E.g. I *hate* x86 (to put it mildly), still I can and do use PC's
since OS/compiler insulate me from gory mess underneath.  Of course,
when it comes to debugging really hard stuff when I have to go down to
assembler level - I have to reach for a barf-bag since it's so
frustrating, compared to pdp11, vax, m68k, sparc, you name it.



Well, I think what I'm trying to say is that Lout is elegant and
flexible enough to *bend* to meet user needs when user types his Lout
manually *and* that Lout is elegant and flexible enough to *be bent*
to meet program's needs for programs that want to target Lout as
output format - and that you don't need to bend *your program* to
target user-targeted Lout code and can bend *Lout* to do what your
program needs it to do.

Just my $0.02.

SY, Uwe
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