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Groups > comp.lang.forth > #36582
| From | anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.forth |
| Subject | Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) |
| Date | 2015-02-15 10:34 +0000 |
| Organization | Institut fuer Computersprachen, Technische Universitaet Wien |
| Message-ID | <2015Feb15.113441@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> (permalink) |
| References | (4 earlier) <mblgbb$qa7$1@dont-email.me> <mblidn$3lq$1@dont-email.me> <mblmod$nhh$1@dont-email.me> <2015Feb14.112126@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <mbo4kf$mit$1@dont-email.me> |
Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> writes:
>Anton Ertl wrote:
>
>> Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> writes:
>>>You better ask Tim Berner-Lee why he invented HTML, and didn't just put
>>>LaTeX into his browser; the latter would have made a lot of sense, since
>>>all
>>>the people at CERN usually write their stuff in LaTeX anyways. But it
>>>would have been more work upfront.
>>
>> I think it would have been less work; the browser would have been just
>> wget (new, because it did not exist at the time. but simple to write),
>> latex and xdvi, with extensions for hyperlinks. The problem would
>> have been that on the hardware of 1990 , it would have been too slow.
>> Our LaTeX benchmark takes 93s on a 486/66
>> <http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/franz/latex-bench>. The best
>> hardware in 1990 was something like a 33MHz 486 or R3000, and
>> Berners-Lee had to target the majority of existing hardware, e.g.,
>> something like a 16MHz 386. Ok, a web page would not take as much
>> time as our LaTeX benchmark, but still too much.
>
>Berner-Lee only wrote for the NeXT cubes they had available.
I.e., a 25MHz 68030.
>Your benchmark
>runs on a 140k byte LaTeX document, rendering 33 pages. The typical web
>page of that time was one page.
Yes, but it still would have taken too long on that hardware.
>Furthermore, using LaTeX, you could have prerendered all pages, and just
>transmitted the dvis. xdvi really did perform very well, and was only
>slightly larger than the original LaTeX (212kB for the 140kB of your
>benchmark). xdvi however was very slow on embedded images, since these
>images were embedded as PostScript. But that could have been solved easily,
>just add another \special for gif and jpeg.
Or transmit them as Postscript, which would have fit nicely with the
Display Postscript on the NeXT systems. However, prerendering has the
disadvantage that it creates a fixed layout, not one adapted to the
window width and the font size preferences of the user. There is a
reason why we don't use Postscript of PDF for web pages.
>> Did they have to? HTML 2.0 is fine for most of my uses, and 4.0
>> covers the rest (and provides lots of unneeded fluff). I don't need
>> styles, and I am pretty sure they were not needed for what Berners-Lee
>> had in mind, either. So he took the Forth approach: Created something
>> new tailored for his needs instead of catering for future expansion.
>
>The original idea of Berner-Lee was to improve communication between
>scientists at CERN. The sort of people who already write a lot of LaTeX.
>Maybe it would have been a bad idea if his original idea was kids who post
>selfies on Facebook, but that wasn't the original showcase.
>
>The LaTeX community back then already had found out that they needed styles.
Scientific writers do not really need styles. Hardly anybody who
writes something with LaTeX defines his own style. We choose a style,
because we have to, but typically we either use the default "article"
style for articles, or a style the publisher prescribes. That is
similar to the original HTML idea of the writer just providing the
content, and the reader deciding the style (which then consisted only
of the text width and font sizes).
The whole style nonsense came with the "web designers", who wanted a
specific layout and wanted to force it down the reader's throat. That
idea is alien to both the original HTML and LaTeX. Actually
Postscript and PDF are perfect formats for that, but somehow the web
designers and Adobe did not meet (at least not before Adobe bought
Macromedia).
>IMHO, TeX already is one of my showcases, that you should not thing about
>adding a language late in the process. Originally, TeX was supposed to do
>all the typesetting, and TeX, as programming language, just gradually
>evolved.
Yes, Knuth had expected people to take TeX and changing it for their
needs. It turns out that even the style designers prefer to leave it
untouched, and build on top of it.
>> And while users may moan about bloated software, they still buy it,
>> and let the slim competition die from lack of revenue.
>
>Ah, the browser industry is not a "buy" industry. It's either free
>software, or deeply integrated in the operating system.
Modify "buy" as appropriate for the business model. In this case, I
guess "use" is the right replacement.
- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
EuroForth 2014: http://www.euroforth.org/ef14/
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Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2015-02-12 12:13 -0800
Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-02-12 12:56 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? empty-buffers <empty.buffersYOU-DONT-WANT-THIS@gmail.NEITHER-THIS.com> - 2015-02-12 21:32 +0000
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-02-13 13:08 -0500
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-13 19:39 +0100
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-02-13 14:14 -0500
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-13 21:28 +0100
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-02-13 14:22 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-14 01:34 +0100
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-02-13 22:42 -0800
HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-02-14 10:21 +0000
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-14 19:37 +0100
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2015-02-14 11:13 -0800
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-14 21:07 +0100
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-02-14 12:50 -0800
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-14 22:32 +0100
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-02-14 15:10 -0800
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-02-15 10:34 +0000
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-15 22:15 +0100
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-02-16 12:45 +0000
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-15 13:55 -0800
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-02-16 13:52 +0000
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX (was: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ?) Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-16 15:47 +0100
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-16 09:05 -0800
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-02-17 12:21 +0000
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-20 13:23 -0800
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-20 22:33 +0100
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-02-21 15:14 +0000
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-21 20:23 +0100
Re: HTML vs. LaTeX Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-02-21 11:33 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-14 10:14 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-02-22 01:57 -0500
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-22 18:35 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 01:58 -0500
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-23 04:59 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-02-23 19:18 -0500
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-23 18:09 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 01:04 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-24 02:51 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2015-02-24 10:23 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-02-23 21:19 +0100
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-23 17:58 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-02-24 01:07 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org - 2015-02-24 02:19 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2015-02-15 12:18 +0000
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? empty-buffers <empty.buffersYOU-DONT-WANT-THIS@gmail.NEITHER-THIS.com> - 2015-02-13 18:55 +0000
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Melzzzzz <mel@zzzzz.com> - 2015-02-13 20:27 +0100
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-02-13 09:53 -1000
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-02-13 14:18 +0000
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2015-02-13 11:03 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-02-13 22:46 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-02-14 02:35 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2015-02-14 18:47 +0100
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-02-14 18:56 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Ilya Tarasov <ilya74.tarasov@gmail.com> - 2015-02-15 17:10 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-02-16 01:20 -0800
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2015-02-16 12:35 +0100
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-02-16 08:12 -1000
Re: Is 2015 the year of FORTH ? Ilya Tarasov <ilya74.tarasov@gmail.com> - 2015-02-16 15:17 -0800
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