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+%Carol Hewlett's report on UK TUG, held at Nottingham University on
+% 4 November 1988.
+%
+\centerline{\bf UK \TeX\ Users' Group}
+\medskip
+\noindent
+The Inaugural Meeting of the UK \TeX\ Users' Group was held at the
+University of Nottingham, on 4 November 1988.
+\smallskip
+\leftline{Summary of Papers:}
+\par
+\noindent{\it\MFsl\ ---\ An Overview: Charles Curran, Oxford University}
+
+\noindent
+Charles Curran started out by asking What is \MF? He then proceeded to give
+some reasons why it might be used:
+\item{1} to design `odd characters', but not usually a whole
+fount;
+\item{2} there were problems with
+different device drivers and these
+could be cured via \MF\ by altering the device
+parameters for various printers,
+particularly with reference to the write-white versus write-black enigma;
+\item{3} sometimes defective characters needed redesigning.
+
+\noindent
+He said that existing characters can often be adapted;
+he suggested people speak to Dominik Wujastyk if they needed to get founts for
+alphabets other than european.
+He then showed diagrammatically the relationship between \MF\ and \TeX\ and
+the various ouput files, some of which should be tuned to the desired output
+device.
+Various implementations of \MF\ exist, running on {\sc vms}, {\sc sun} and
+Macintosh. Some have preview capability.
+
+Charles said that \MF\ can be used to
+generate Computer Modern fonts at various
+resolutions\slash magnifications; to generate device-specific fonts by modifying
+e.g., |waits.mf|, |local.mf|; and to generate odd characters.
+
+It was possible that there was a need for a UK \MF\ group, although the
+r\^ole of answering \MF\ problems was currently dealt with by newsletters
+and bulletin boards.
+
+Charles then made a number of general points about the matching of founts
+to page-printers. It was not generally known which print engine
+was used in which page-printer (and it could be very difficult to find out).
+Further, the average user (or implementer) didn't always know
+how a fount {\it should} look and whether
+what was being produced was the best possible. This suggested another
+area for the exchange of information: information on page-printers and their
+print engines and examples of the best possible printing that could be
+achieved with any given machine. Another field for discussion/education
+was that of type design in general.
+
+In the discussion that followed Charles' paper, it was suggested that
+a sample book be put together. The relationship (if that's the right
+word) between \MF\ and \PS\ was mentioned: will \PS\ take over
+all that \MF\ now does?
+Finally it was pointed out that while \MF\ can be used to design {\it families},
+programs like Fontographer were good for single characters but needed a
+lot of work to retain any consistency when designing more than a few
+characters.
+\medskip
+\noindent{\it Installing \TeX\ --- the scenic route: David Osborne, Nottingham
+University}
+
+\noindent
+David Osborne's paper had a subtitle --- the long road to implementing \TeX.
+At Nottingham, several years had been spent in trying to provide a \TeX\
+user service. David explained that they had
+originally obtained a \WEB\ source
+for their VAX machines. \WEB\ contains both the program source and
+its documentation. The code is run through a program called \Tangle, which
+gives Pascal program output and documentation separately; the documentation
+file then goes through \Weave\ to produce the real documentation and the Pascal
+compiler is used to produce the \TeX\ executable program. \Tangle\ needs to
+read a system-specific change file as well as \WEB.
+
+There was lots of documentation, but very little help as to where to start
+reading it. However, most of these problems were solved reasonably quickly.
+The real difficulty came when trying to fix the printer for \TeX. That
+particular problem had still not been solved, although they were now
+considering an AGFA PostScript page-printer, which promised a reasonable
+printing speed and for which a \TeX-\PS\ driver could be used.
+
+He summed up by giving three points which new implementers of \TeX\ should
+follow:
+\item{$\bullet$} Choose the output device {\it first\/}.
+\item{$\bullet$} Allow plenty of time for the implementers to become familiar with
+the package and documentation.
+\item{$\bullet$} Allow plenty of time for the implementation
+
+\noindent
+David further suggested that better documentation directed at implementers
+was needed; and that there were implications for training both users
+and those who would advise them.
+\medskip
+\noindent{\it An Introduction to \LaTeX: Sue Brooks, Bradford University
+Software Services Limited}
+
+\noindent
+Sue Brooks gave a very persuasive talk about the benefits of using \LaTeX.
+She set out a number of questions that were asked and told us her answers.
+
+First, what was \LaTeX? It was a macro package that was somewhat similar to
+Scribe (which was itself like Troff). The assumption was made that a
+document had a structure; additionally, \LaTeX\ was able to handle book-like
+items like table of contents.
+
+Second, why use \LaTeX? Because it uses a document model rather than a
+page description, as |plain|
+ \TeX\ did. It also included certain other sets
+of macros, namely \BibTeX\ and \SliTeX. Sue compared \LaTeX\ to DTP packages
+where she felt that \LaTeX\ won hands down.
+
+Third, why did Sue use \LaTeX? Partly this was historical --- she had learned
+\LaTeX\ while at the Open University. She still felt that it was the best
+way for her to do her current publishing work. It provided a user service,
+without the need for the user to write macros.
+
+Fourth, who would benefit from using it? Authors (especially when
+collaborating), authors' minions and documentation producers.
+
+Fifth, what was wrong with \LaTeX? For a start, it was too structured; the
+style files were not fully understood (except by Leslie Lamport?) and there
+was no good {\it reference} manual (although the `User's Manual' was fine).
+But there was no alternative, either!
+
+Next, Sue said that \LaTeX\ was certainly not going to disappear, but there
+were a number of things that would improve it, especially for the UK. In
+particular, the distribution needed sorting out; more information should be
+available on the implementation details and style files. There should be
+a |doc| to |sty| convertor and English hyphenation.
+
+Finally, to ease the user's burden, Sue suggested: good editing interfaces,
+\LaTeX-intelligent spelling checkers, indexing tools, \BibTeX, \SliTeX\ and
+its fonts, and style files.
+\medskip
+\noindent{\it TUG, Montr\'eal 1988 Conference: Cathy~Booth, Exeter
+University}
+
+\noindent
+Cathy's report appears in full
+elsewhere in \TeXline.
+\medskip
+\noindent{\it\TeX\ in Germany: report from Freiburg Meeting:
+Chris~Rowley, Open University}
+
+\noindent
+Chris opened his report by saying that there was a lot of \TeX\ going on
+in W. Germany. \TeX\ does acknowledge that there are countries other than
+the US, so is welcomed by Germans. It seems to be widely used at the high-end
+by commercial users. Among other things, there is work on fount design.
+The meeting had held a `problem session', in which there was a discussion
+of extensions to \TeX. A program of development for \TeX\ and \LaTeX\ was
+proposed, for which 24 extensions were suggested.
+\medskip
+Sebastian~Rahtz (Southampton University)
+was due to present a paper on Picture Languages, but as the proceedings
+were running late, it was omitted. Peter Abbott (Aston University) asked for
+\TeX\ contributions for an issue of {\it University Computing}. He also
+asked for volunteers to help with the task of checking over the Aston
+Archive to try to keep duplicated material to a minimum and to make sure
+that what was there was up-to-date.
+\medskip
+\noindent{\it A UK TUG?: Malcolm Clark, Imperial College}
+
+\noindent
+Malcolm started by giving the meeting a pep talk, which he said was his
+review of the world through \TeX-coloured glasses. He outlined the activities
+of TUG, which included a newsletter, courses, annual conference, hotline
+support (and email), products and a speakers bureau. He reminded the meeting
+of the three electronic \TeX\ things --- \TeXhax, UK\TeX\ and the Aston
+Archive. Malcolm noted the other European countries with \TeX\ groups of
+various sorts, including \TeX interessen (W. Germany and Austria), Gutenberg
+in France, a Dutch group, a Nordic grouping,
+a \TeX-produced journal in Spain and also activity in Poland, Israel and Eire.
+He listed the European \TeX\ meetings, in Italy in 1985, Strasbourg, 1986,
+Exeter, 1988 and to come, Karslruhe/Freiburg or Stockholm in 1989 and Cork in
+1990. The last topic of his review was of other groups with an interest
+in electronic typesetting --- the Electronic Publishing Specialist Group of
+the British Computer Society, the British Computer Society's Displays
+Group and the \sgml\ users' group.
+
+It had been revealed to the meeting that Malcolm had been asked to be
+the European co-ordinator for TUG. His next points were on the subject
+of what we wanted from TUG and what we could do. On the second point,
+be believed that the big thing was to try to solve the ignorance factor.
+
+\item{$\bullet$}we could produce a brief flyer to define \TeX; answer such
+questions as where can \dvi\ files be typeset; perhaps document and provide an
+index to the other \LaTeX\ style files and exchange \hbox{information} on
+implementing \TeX.
+
+\item{$\bullet$}someone could make a map showing the interrelation between \WEB,
+\Weave, \Tangle, \TeX, Pascal, C, |gf|, |pk|, |pxl|, etc.
+
+\item{$\bullet$}pronounciation could be standardised.
+
+\item{$\bullet$}\TeX\ could be taught English hyphenation. (It was agreed that
+Charles~Curran and Chris~Martin would investigate this area.)
+
+\item{$\bullet$}perhaps even more use could be made of bulletin boards, electronic
+mail and the Aston Archive.
+
+\item{$\bullet$}workshops could be arranged on certain subjects, such as \MF\ type
+design, macros, style files, graphics, etc.
+
+\noindent
+The rest of Malcolm's talk, group discussion and so forth was not so
+structured. Although no conclusion was reached, there was much talk about
+the relationship between any UK \TeX\ group and TUG. It was suggested
+that we could be a {\sc TUG} subgroup, such that a subscription to the UK
+Group would also form a subscription to TUG itself.
+Then UK subscribers could get `local' services and {TUG\sc boat}.
+Alternately, could the
+UK group merely collect subscriptions in sterling on behalf of TUG,
+to save us from buying \$ drafts or using credit cards? How did Europe as
+a whole fit in? The only conclusion reached was that there should be a
+group of some sort concerned with \TeX\ that holds regular meetings. It
+was agreed that there would be another meeeting to be held in London,
+probably in March, after Malcolm got back from the US where he would have
+found out more about what being European co-ordinator entailed.
+
+Another subject that was raised from time to time was the fact that
+the Nottingham conference had been arranged at short notice (about 3 weeks)
+and was successful because those attending had been sent electronic mail
+over {\sc janet}. This gave University staff an advantage over commercial users.
+It was established that commercial companies could have a
+legitimate {\sc janet} address if they wished to communicate with the academic
+community. They were not supposed to use {\sc janet} to communicate with other
+commercial users. For the purposes of receiving UK\TeX, etc.,
+provided mail boxes could be established,
+there was no reason why commercial users should not be able to have
+a {\sc janet} address.
+It was suggested that universtity recipients of UK\TeX\ send one
+(printed) copy to a non-email user.
+
+The meeting ended with a very warm vote of thanks to David Osborne who made all
+the local arrangements.
+\smallskip
+\rightline{\sl Carol Hewlett}
+\bigskip
+\centerline{\bf A UK \TeX\ Users Group?}
+\medskip\noindent
+On Friday November 4th I had the pleasure of attending a meeting
+organised in Nottingham for the purpose of discussing a possible
+UK \TeX\ Users Group. The impetus for this came from the very successful
+\TeX88 conference, one of an informal series of get-togethers for
+European \TeX ies, coupled with the remarkable rise to power of the
+UK's own \TeX\ Archive at Aston under the benign leadership of Peter
+Abbott. David Osborne put together a colloquium at short notice in the
+congenial surroundings of the Cripps Computing
+Centre, and about 40 people were able
+to come. The problem with the short notice was that David perforce
+used electronic mail to advertise the event, leading to a high
+proportion of committed gurus present, not many dumb users and more or
+less nobody from outside academia.
+
+The day started officially at 11\,am. For some of us, this meant rising
+at 5\,am, tripping over the cat and stumbling onto a train at 6\,am. Thank
+god for British Rail egg and cress sandwiches. Anyway, at 11 or
+thereabouts, Charles Curran from Oxford ambled onto the stage and
+started talking about \MF. He claimed to have had his brief
+changed 2 minutes before, but managed somehow to suggest that since
+Computer Modern and \MF\ won't go away in the near future, and since the whole
+situation of different printers and drivers is a mess, it would not do any harm
+at all to have a UK group advising neophytes on which files to
+sacrifice black cocks in front of (this apparently being the correct
+way to get a good value for `blacker' in your |local.mf| file). Anyone
+in the audience who still thought \TeX\ was something you bought off the
+shelf at Safeway were then disillusioned by David Osborne's outline of
+\TeX\ installation at Nottingham. While his problems revolved mainly
+around printers, it was clear that the apparent `free' nature of \TeX\
+is more than paid for by the arcane nature of the installation from a
+raw tape. Again, it was clear that new people would benefit from
+experience from a local group.
+
+A breath of fresh air came from Sue Brooks (late of the OU, now in
+commercial software documentation) with her unashamed plug for
+writers (as opposed to \TeX ies) to use Lamport's \LaTeX\ macros; she
+gave a clear outline of the advantages and even some solutions to the
+answers to problems. She was followed after a fine lunch by
+Cathy Booth (Exeter) who told us about the \TeX\ Users Group meeting in
+Montreal; the interest here was in its concentration on \TeX\ in
+real world production environments, which confirmed the impression
+given in Seattle that \TeX\ has gone beyond implementation details (a
+lesson the UK group could take on board?). Cathy also passed on some
+gob-smacking gossip from commercial vendors about their new products. She was
+followed by the most valuable talk (to me), a report by Chris Rowley (OU) on the
+most recent German \TeX interessen meeting, in which he gave an impression of
+what went on in German \TeX ery. Their work on customizing \TeX\ for German,
+writing new books and listing the definite things a NEW\TeX\ should do, shows
+up how lax we have been in the UK in simply accepting what the Americans give
+us --- as was pointed out, we still lack English hyphenation
+patterns. The Germans (and other European groups) seemed to be putting
+more effort than the British into getting \LaTeX\ right, and this seemed
+to be an area where progress could actually be expected.
+
+I was scheduled to give a talk on picture languages in the afternoon,
+but in the interests of discussion I agreed to be left out; Malcolm
+Clark, the charismatic Leaderene of \TeX88, and
+editor of the prestigious \TeXline, then took the stage and
+harangued the populace on the State of the World according to \TeX,
+outlining what sources of information we had now in Europe and the UK,
+what the \TeX\ Users Group does, and what we needed in the UK. It turned
+out that Malcolm had been unilaterally appointed European Coordinator
+for TUG, so he was able to promise
+a firm presentation of our desires to TUG. He outlined issues that
+needed to be addressed, such as general ignorance in the world at
+large about what \TeX\ was and how to get it, hyphenation problems,
+teaching \TeX\ etc. Finally, we got around to the question of whether a
+formal British group was needed, as opposed to simply sticking with
+the main TUG or forming a pan-European group. Dissatisfaction over
+what we got from TUG for the money prompted suggestions of an
+autonomous group, while others wanted an affiliated chapter --- the
+consensus seemed to me that we would like to join a UK version of TUG
+which charged us a subscription, but sent most of it off to America
+and joined TUG on our behalf, saving us bank charges etc., and
+(hopefully) letting TUG ease administration and postage costs. Three
+problems prevented a formal constitution being set up on the spot: a)
+we did not know how TUG would react --- Malcolm would find this out in
+January; b) nobody had tabled any suggestions, and it was getting
+dark; c) we were not at all representative of UK \TeX\ users (i.e.~we were
+mostly academic \TeX bores). It was therefore decided to hold another
+meeting in London in February, with wider invitations, when we would
+formally set up a group (or not, as the meeting went!).
+
+\TeX\ is hampered by its free image, to the same extent as it is aided
+by its free image. Without commercial support, it can only exist if a
+committed user group continues to keep its distribution and use at a
+high standard. Ten years after the foundation of TUG, are cracks
+showing? Will \TeX\ survive in the `real world'? Chaotic and inefficient
+as it was (I did not see why a full meeting of users could not have
+taken place later on without this initial peculiar subset), the
+meeting in Nottingham was another valuable contribution to The Cause
+of keeping the \TeX\ flame alight. Let us hope a UK group is successfully
+formed.
+\smallskip
+\rightline{\sl Sebastian Rahtz}