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From: Chris Rowley <C.A.Rowley@OPEN.AC.UK>
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Subject:      Re: What is "base" LaTeX
Status: R

Sebastian

> its amazing how the tens of millions of Web users out there happily
> use this inferior technology, isn't it.

Indeed, it is so amazing that I simply do not believe it.  The WEB has
lots of potential uses, some of which are already excleent (instant
typing correction is not one of them:-), but many of which need much
better technology before people "should be happy" with them.

Would you be happy to have to do all your Java course on-line, without
a decent printer available?

Happiness with tecnology is a funny thing: very, very many people are
"very happy" with a 14in screen; but a lot of (not all) people who now
have a 17in or 19in screen now realise that they "should not have been
happy" with the 14in one.

> of course, many are not 20th century mathematicians...

And I am sure that the world is a better place for that:-)?

Puts on statistical hat: I suspect that the proportion of this dying
race that uses the web is very high compared with the whole of the
great unwashed.

>
> if you want a document to read on the screen, why not design for the
> screen? of course, if you work towards an A4 page with 1 inch margins
> and 10 pt Computer Modern math, and display it in PDF with the full
> page, it looks like a set of bird tracks.

Mmm, interesting.  I agree completely with Sebastian that we need good
screen design but i am unsure if he agrees with me that a lot of basic
ideas in design and in the technolgies to support it: the designs
themselves will be different and the possibilities of on-screen
documents (even static ones) are probably more diverse, but there is a
lot of basic stuff in common.  Thus in the context of this list, there
is no need to make a large distinction but just to extend our idea of
what a document is.

Even more interesting: I think that PDF is an excellnet medium for
viewing on screen, and printing if needed, a 10pt CM math document.

And we happy breed of people, the 20C pure mathematicians, now do this
a lot thanks to the efforts of our professional bodies (and maybe some
publishers too;-).


chris