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References: <199811261227.NAA14424@na6.mathematik.uni-tuebingen.de>
            <199811261313.NAA28971@lurgmhor.elsevier.co.uk>
Message-ID:  <199812121438.PAA23249@baghira.npc.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
In-Reply-To:  <199811261313.NAA28971@lurgmhor.elsevier.co.uk>
Date:         Sat, 12 Dec 1998 15:38:42 +0100
From: Joachim Schrod <jschrod@ACM.ORG>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: portable LaTeX
Status: R

>>>>> "SR" == Sebastian Rahtz <s.rahtz@ELSEVIER.CO.UK> writes:

[I'm going over 6 weeks of mails -- even though it's quite old, I
could not let it stand uncommented...]

>> > i know i sound like an evangelist, but XML/MathML/SVG really *are*
>> > designed to cover this sort of game. your SVG graphic will embed
>> > MathML markup cleanly.
>>
>> Again, are the necessary authoring tools available? Will it allow me
>> to easily typeset (!) my personal documents?
SR> have you actually *tried* Office 97 to compose your memos? [...]
SR> No,  I dont use it either, [...]

Yes, we do, most of the time, as requested by our customers. Problem:
We don't succeed. Problem: I have yet to find somebody succeeding. You
cannot input an element-oriented structure with a system that's
architecture is oriented towards paragraph formatting control.

MS Word is a fu**ing bad, brain-dead program. Compared to other
authoring environments like LaTeX or Framemaker or Interleaf or ...,
it costs large amounts of money in terms of lost productivity,
additional work, fighting with the instability of this program (and
loosing), etc. Being forced to use MS Word always means to raise
project prices.

(As an aside: You should address Christine the next time we see, and
tell her that Office 97 is fine to use for creating documents. Bring
money with you, you'll have to spend her a single malt for that
comment to not get murdered. :-)

Yes, XML is a Good Thing (TM) for certain areas. We use it a lot in
application development. The real advantages like in initiatives like
RDF, XMI, etc; using XML as a protocol specification and interchange
language. XML has it's strength on the corporate level, as port of the
infrastructure base. No, IMNSHO XML is not usable for authors, and I
don't see this changing in the near or mid-term future. It's too
inconvenient, return on personal investment is too low, and there are
no tools in sight that will change this. (We track the market very
closely.)

        Joachim

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Joachim Schrod                                  Email: jschrod@acm.org
Net & Publication Consultance GmbH              Tel.:  +49-6074-861530
Roedermark, Germany                             Fax:   +49-6074-861531