Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-4-10-2:43
From: "Linux Activists" <[email-masked]>
To: "Linux-Activists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 11:15:54 +0300

Topics:
	 Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-4-9-15:13
	 Re: Greg Naber's message of Mon, 10 May 1993 00:21:43 +0300
	 Format of documents for the LDP

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From: [email-masked] (Michael K Johnson)
Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-4-9-15:13
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 05:11:28 +0300

   So now alls I have to do is go buy a postscript printer, good, I can
   certainly afford to do that to support this hobby I have here.

Or get ghostscript, or get a dvi driver for your printer, or get
dvi2tty, or read the source (not really that difficult), or, if you
don't know any of these things, ask for help.  It has been done in the
past, and doesn't hurt *that* much.  It *is* much more effective than
making fun of us for trying to produce high-quality docs.

   X11 and TeX are both items I can do without running this 'free' access
   Linux site. What is the software needed to convert the TeX source to plain
   ascii format or at the least, to be able to use this rather old 9-pin
   printer I have here. 

detex, available as
sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/packages/TeX/utah-mirror/pub/detex/detex.trz, (a
whole 32 K)

   Something along the lines of program file >/dev/lp2 and have a rather
   resonable chance of getting it printed without a lot of useless
   underlining or bold face being done to the poor printer? 

If you can stand printing graphics, you can even use a dvi driver, but
you would have to temporarily install a few fonts, essentially a lot
of the tex package.  Otherwise, use the solutions above.  When
Jonathan Monsarrat finishes his work on lametex, it will better.  In
the meantime, there *are* other options.

   > See above; send changes to the LaTeX source.

   Again, you are cutting out the pssibilty of having many proofreaders
   available to you by having just one format. And making it a requirement
   that anyone who wants to help is required to know and use more hardware
   than they may be willing to give room or time for.

You are making more of this than there is.  It's not that hard.  If
you don't care enough to try one of the many ways that exist to print
it, I don't want you as a proofreader.  I will not go through the hell
of maintaining multiple source formats just so you can proofread in
the way you want.  I don't feel rotten about that.

   > mentions this as well.

   Early on it was mentioned that ascii was to be available also.

Early on it was mentioned that this is a work that will take time, and
that the ascii will be available when lametex matures.

Enough is enough, OK?

michaelkjohnson

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From: [email-masked] (Grant Taylor)
Subject: Re: Greg Naber's message of Mon, 10 May 1993 00:21:43 +0300
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 06:51:09 +0300

[half a silly thread deleted]

   So now alls I have to do is go buy a postscript printer, good, I can
   certainly afford to do that to support this hobby I have here.

all you need is ghostscript.  

I think part of this is people without a clue trying to get things
done their way.  While you probably know which way is up -- you seem
to run a bbs -- whoever it was who started this whole thread should
realize that everyone and his cousin in the internet community uses a
derivative of TeX for their text formatting needs.  The AMS folk,
Leslie Lampart, the gnu project -- all these people have a .fmt of
their own to go with tex.  It's not particularly difficult to learn,
and it is far more flexible than anything else.  It is free.  All the
supporting software you might convceivably need is also free.

Recognition of the fact that the doc project is a bunch of volunteers
trying to produce decent quality manuals for linux is in order.  They
could not hope to have decent quality without some type of formatting
package, nor could they be expected to all go out and buy (to pick a
wholly inadequate example) wordperfect to work with.  From what I have
seen of the work, the linux community will very soon be blessed with
high quality manuals actually fit for printing and reading, rather
than just grepping when needed.

As for those feeling that latex needs special programs to be readable,
the conventions of latex source are few and simple, but if you want to
do it right, all you need is three floppies-full from the sls -- the t
series has everything but gs, which will print postscript happily to
most printers.  TeX is 5.5 megs, gs+fonts is maybe 4.  This is hardly
a big requirement in the way of space.  Xdvi displays a very legible
rendition of a dvi file; printing each draft is not needed if you want
to offer suggestions.

[more of silly never-ending thread deleted :)]

Does a FAQ or doc project something exist telling about the programs
in the SLS useful for producing printed output?  Judging from the
length of this thread, there are more than a few people out there who
would benefit from a how to print things faq...  I would be glad to
write such a thing if the world thinks it to be of use.

... just my 3 cents

-grant

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From: [email-masked] (Lars Wirzenius)
Subject: Format of documents for the LDP
Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 09:46:42 +0300

One of my favorite flame wars coming up!  Wonderful!  I feel angry and
excited already!  _This_ time I'll sure burn them all so they'll think
Hell is a cool place to be!

On second thoughts, I think I'll mostly skip it this time.  Takes too
much time away from useful work.  I'll just point out a few facts:

1. The LDP books are being written using LaTeX.  That probably won't
   change.
2. Man pages and Info docs are written using the appropriate tools.
   That probably won't change either.
3. If you aren't satisfied with this, flaming does you no good.  Try
   using factual arguments to convice us.  We're all fairly reasonable
   people and will listen to facts, if presented politely.  If the
   facts are good enough, we'll reconsider.  (But they have to be
   very, very good facts in this case.)
4. LaTeX source is definitely not unreadable even if you don't know
   LaTeX.  Try it sometime.  Quoting from some song: ``My little baby
   sister could do it with ease.''
5. Formatted versions of the docs will be provided in multiple
   formats, including, but not limited to, PostScript, ASCII, and
   Laserjet.  Essentially, any format that is easy to generate from
   the LaTeX source will be provided.
6. Not all formats are provided yet.  That's because this is still
   very, very unfinished stuff yet.
7. As always in Linux, if you want it done _now_, you do it.  If you
   won't, then shut up.
8. Don't flame volunteers, it does only harm.  Remember networking?
   (Actually, I'm prone to do it myself: that's the major reason why I
   stopped doing the Meta-FAQ and INFO-SHEET: they were mostly
   ignored.)
9. If LaTeX is too big an obstacle for you to be able to help the LDP,
   then tough.  I don't think anyone wants to scare off anyone from
   the LDP, but don't expect us to go to a lot of trouble just to
   accomodate a couple of LaTeX-haters.  Remember: you know have to
   install LaTeX, since the document source is almost plain text as it
   is.

Just to be constructive, here's a few hints for reading LaTeX source:

- % starts a comment that continues to the end of the line
- \ starts a command word; mostly, you can ignore these
- {} delimit parameters (if after a command word), and groups
- [] delimit (some) parameters to command words

(and those were real hard to guess).

Unless someone comes up with actual facts, I'm going to ignore this
discussion from now on.

--
[email-masked]  (finger [email-masked])
   MS-DOS, you can't live with it, you can live without it.

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End of DOC Digest
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