Re: diatribe

["Y&Y, Inc." <support@YandY.com>]

At 02:15 PM 97/12/09 +0100, Simon Mang Cao wrote:

>> Regarding the so-called `MF/T1' problem.

>> Guys: what a load of hot air over something so uninteresting!
>> I don't know where to begin.  So I'll not bother about technical details.

>> It's a classic case of the TeX world contemplating its own navel while the
>> rest of the world passes it by!  Count me out.

>I don't know how I got this mail. I remembered only that I gave
>out my VF's to some people requested for those missing design
>sizes in the AMS/PS distribution provided jointly by AMS, BSR and Y&Y.

My complaint was not aimed at you specifically.  I am sorry if it annoyed you.
Rather than delve into the technical details, let my explain my concerns.

Somehow in the TeX world there is an isolationist trend of `us against them'
This creates an inward looking closed shop atmosphere.
We argue about how many angles can dance on the head of a pin,
and whether a DVI driver should print a blank page or not, and what do do
about the 65,536 page limit to books done in TeX.

Instead of thinking about how to make best use of powerful drawing
programs, how to prepare material for page imposition, how best to
publish on the web, what to do about UNICODE.  How to import TeX
typeset material into other applications and so on. I am not saying
nobody is concerned about such issues,  just that they (and several 
others) should take center stage.

If TeX is to survive in the long range it should adapt to make as much use
as possible of other technological advances, instead of diving deeper
and deeper into special purpose `ghetto solutions' - as Sebastian Rahtz
calls them - that make it more and more difficult to integrate TeX into
a complete publishing environment.

Regards, Berthold.