X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil t nil nil nil nil] ["1232" "Mon" "14" "June" "93" "18:24:21" "-0400" "H Sami Sozuer" "sozueh@RPI.EDU" "<9306142235.AA25494@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de>" "32" "Re: questions on CD task" "^Date:" nil nil "6"]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (mailserv) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/1.9.92 ) id AA05409; Tue, 15 Jun 93 00:35:04 +0200 Received: from vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (vm.hd-net.uni-heidelberg.de) by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0-sc/03.06.93) id AA25494; Tue, 15 Jun 93 00:35:03 +0200 Message-Id: <9306142235.AA25494@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de> Received: from DHDURZ1 by vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6146; Tue, 15 Jun 93 00:33:32 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 6911; Tue, 15 Jun 93 00:33:26 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 6909; Tue, 15 Jun 93 00:33:24 CET Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 18:24:21 -0400 From: H Sami Sozuer Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: Re: questions on CD task Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1048 Regarding the picture environment planned for LaTeX3, I would like to point out that an excellent language already exists, namely PostScript. Therefore I think it may be very wise to adopt the PostScript language within this picture environment. I realize this is a huge task, but there is already a public domain PostScript interpreter, GhostScript, which is highly compatible with PostScript. More precisely, I am proposing something like the following: \begin{PostScript} ... PostScript code ... \end{PostScript} Of course, people who use dvips know that this can be done via the \special{ps: ...} command from within TeX itself, but then one can only use a PostScript printer because TeX itself does not process the PostScript code. In order to maintain device independence, the PostScript code within the PostScript environment must be processed *before* the dvi file is formed. To make things manageable, one could adopt a subset of the language in this environment at first. Another advantage of adopting PostScript would be the ability to directly include the output from all sorts of other programs. Needless to say, the effort spent by the user to learn the language will also be of much broader value. Sami Sozuer