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Re: How can we evangelize PostScript?

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luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> writes:

> It's happened to me many, many times that I find myself
> trying to explain to someone (usually, a non-programmer)
> 'what's so great about postscript?' And, not to be uncouth,
> but I always leave the bar alone.

I actually spent some time wishing for something like PostScript before
I discovered that PostScript was it! Because the only PostScript I'd
seen was unreadable stuff produced by printer drivers and suchlike.

PostScript gives me:

* primitives from which I can easily construct good-looking documents
* precise control over placement and layout in those documents
* an easy path from data from my other software to printed reports
* easy integration with other software.

A word about each in order,

PostScript gives me everything from custom fonts to Bézier curves to
gradient fills (level 3's worth it for that alone).

For instance, with the middle, once I needed two letters perfectly just
touching each other, and PostScript let me probe the font outline and
position the letters exactly as desired.

For instance, I can calculate what I want to show (for instance, I used
gradient-filled triangles to show a field intensity map from point
sample data), or maybe I want to show data structures I already have or
whatever (e.g., where a sensor system thinks objects are, combined with
sensors' field of view), and just output them in PostScript format ready
for working on in my document. I can even adjust the document layout for
paper size, input data, etc., by writing layout code in PostScript
itself (for instance, I can probe the dimensions of text before drawing
it for real).

I can then integrate this material into document formatting tools like
LaTeX and Basser Lout, even turn the material to little PDF diagrams for
other software, with no loss in quality.

> The best I've come up with is: It's like playing with
> Lego(tm) blocks with magic words written on them.
> You can build a toy out of basic parts and then 
> breathe life into it and watch it fly around the room.

And, the parts happen to be very much one might have wanted for the
task.

> So question 1 is: What's the "elevator pitch" for PostScript?
> How can you explain it such that your new programmer friend
> actually googles that shit when he gets home?

It's great for producing a concise file that renders data as exactly as
one desires and at the maximum capability of the output device.

> Now, on a broader scale, what can be done to raise PostScript's
> reputation in the world of people? I was disheartened at the
> lack of response to the recent thread about what new features
> should be in the next version of PostScript?
(snip)

There are two difficulties:

PDF is overtaking PostScript as a quality document interchange format;
various software libraries now work with PDF directly. For instance,
these days to fill in forms neatly I use xournal, not flpsed. Though, of
course, PostScript is good as source for those PDFs. To consider what
new features should be in PostScript, I think it's probably worth
looking at what PDF can do but PostScript can't. The big one for me is
transparency as a fourth color component. An alternative might be to
think more ambitiously about 3D printing and consider how we might
specify that kind of thing in a PostScript with an extra dimension; I
have no idea how CAD-to-prototype handles that kind of interchange now.

Now if didn't know PostScript and wanted to produce precise
not-rasterized graphics, I would be looking at using my favorite
language's bindings to Cairo or somesuch rather than working directly
with PostScript. That might be another issue now that we have such
mature and featureful third-party libraries available.

-- Mark

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Thread

How can we evangelize PostScript? luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> - 2015-02-11 22:04 -0800
  Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2015-02-12 03:09 -0500
    Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? zupftom@googlemail.com - 2015-02-26 03:58 -0800
      Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? jdaw1 <jdawiseman@gmail.com> - 2015-02-26 14:43 -0800
        Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-01 16:43 -0700
  Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? jdaw1 <jdawiseman@gmail.com> - 2015-02-12 01:36 -0800
  Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? James <jjpuzzles@wowway.com> - 2015-02-12 04:29 -0800
  Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Bogus@Embarq.com (Steve) - 2015-02-12 13:50 +0000
  Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Mark Carroll <mtbc@bcs.org> - 2015-02-15 15:27 +0000
    Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2015-02-15 19:20 -0500
    Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? jdaw1 <jdawiseman@gmail.com> - 2015-02-16 01:54 -0800
  Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> - 2015-02-28 00:52 -0800
  Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-01 17:02 -0700
    Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-09 22:59 -0700
      Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-09 23:38 -0700
        Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Peter Billam <peter@www.pjb.com.au> - 2016-06-12 04:52 +0000
          Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-12 00:49 -0700
            Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? luser- -droog <mijoryx@yahoo.com> - 2016-06-12 01:38 -0700
              Re: How can we evangelize PostScript? Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-12 02:31 -0700

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