From e0c6872cf40896c7be36b11dcc744620f10adf1d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Norbert Preining <norbert@preining.info>
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2019 13:46:59 +0900
Subject: Initial commit

---
 usergrps/uktug/baskervi/4_3/clark.tex | 430 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 430 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 usergrps/uktug/baskervi/4_3/clark.tex

(limited to 'usergrps/uktug/baskervi/4_3/clark.tex')

diff --git a/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/4_3/clark.tex b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/4_3/clark.tex
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d48c2fc23f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/4_3/clark.tex
@@ -0,0 +1,430 @@
+\def\CJ{{\sc Cajun}}
+\title{Malcolm's Gleanings}
+\author[Malcolm Clark]{Malcolm Clark\\\texttt{m.clark@warwick.ac.uk}}
+\begin{Article}
+
+\section{Macsyma}
+A brochure for Macsyma arrived the other day. On the back page of this
+multi-colour leaflet was the statement that `Macsyma's math
+expressions look just like those in textbooks'. I hear some of you
+already `that's hardly surprising since Macsyma can output in \TeX\ 
+format'. Well, yes it can, but what the advert was extolling was its
+ability to use MS-Write (`which comes with MS-Windows') to create
+`screen displays of large expressions', at which it `excels'. By this
+time you will have worked out that I wasn't impressed by the example
+they give. If I make a list of the infelicities that were displayed
+you'll think I was making it up. If Macsyma thinks that textbooks look
+like this it is clear that standards of literacy, mathematics and
+attention to detail have declined irredeemably. I may have to retire
+to Tunbridge Wells.
+
+\section{As others see us}
+In the production notes accompanying the Acrobat in Publishing
+booklet, \LaTeX\ (or Latex) is described as a `mark up text processing
+package'.
+
+Rosemary Bailey pointed out to me that in a report entitled `The
+Scientific, Technical and Medical Information System in the UK',
+prepared on behalf of The Royal Society, the British Library and The
+Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, \TeX\ is
+defined as `A mark-up language, similar to SGML, compiler and output
+software, first developed by the American Mathematical Society (AMS),
+for complex mathematical papers.  The files contain standard ASCII
+characters, and can therefore be transmitted over simple computer
+networks.  Has the ability to cope with all mathematical symbols and
+can provide high-quality output.'
+
+Rather similarly, Allan Reese remarked in the UKTUG electronic digest
+that when his letter to the Daily Telegraph was published, `\TeX' had
+been changed to `a text based publishing system'.
+
+
+\section{Colour}
+I can't really see why there is all this fuss about colour. None of the
+publishers I have spoken to show much enthusiasm for \LaTeX's (sort of) new
+ability to allow us to place colour on the page. There are few enough STM
+(Scientific, Technical and Medical -- the nomenclature for most
+\TeX-friendly publishers like Elsevier, Wiley, etc) books with half
+tones let alone full colour. Colour is expensive. In my own
+institution the cost difference between a colour page and a monochrome one
+is a factor of 12 or so. Fine for the odd page, but hardly enticing.
+It is true that colour has its place: that place is usually a full
+colour photograph or two in, for example, medical books, or the dust
+jacket or cover of a book. Few journals routinely print colour, and
+when they do, they often levy an additional charge.
+
+So why are people so excited? There are possibly a couple of reasons, and they
+have nothing to do with paper. The first explanation has been with us for a
+long time. \SliTeX\ has always given the capability of creating slides in
+colour, although I have never knowingly witnessed slides created in colour by
+\SliTeX. But given current technologies, colour slides make some sort
+of sense in two presentational forms: the traditional overhead slide;
+and through one of these panels which allows the contents of a screen
+to be projected. In the first case we still have the hassle of
+printing, but in the second we have something potentially quite
+useful. Arguably the screen is the cheapest colour system around. It
+is quite expensive in capital terms, and its resolution is not great
+(always a worry with Computer Modern which is deficient at 300\,dpi,
+let alone 72--80\,dpi), but at least the colour rendition is `what you
+see is what you get'. Once you go from screen colours to printed
+colours you are in trouble, and things seldom come out as
+convincingly. This is a well known problem, although there are few
+well known solutions. But stick to the screen and you have something
+quite convincing. This was brought home to me the other day when I
+obtained the notes for an Acrobat seminar in paper and electronic
+form. The paper form was in black, grey and white. The electronic form
+was in colour. Here was an instant example of added value to the
+electronic form -- at no real additional cost. What fascinates me most
+is that this is essentially subversive. Recall that \TeX's clarion
+call was to produce masterpieces of the publishing art: it seems clear
+to me that publishing here implied publishing on paper: what we may
+have is a reason to stick to electronic form because the paper form is
+less rich -- and indeed, can never be as content-full.
+
+One of my reasons for querying the usefulness of colour was the
+arrival recently on my desk of {\em Cahiers GUTenberg}, the journal of
+the French (speaking) \TeX\ group. This long-awaited volume (lateness
+seems endemic in
+\TeX\ based productions) is a colour issue, and goes into many of the details
+surrounding PSTricks, Seminar, and colour in general. While I appreciate that
+if you talk about colour, you really have to use it as well, I find the
+appearance of the volume similar to the early days of DTP, when the naive had
+just discovered fonts. 
+
+\section{Acrobat again}
+\subsection{Acrobat in Publishing}
+By now you will have realised that I think that Acrobat is a good
+thing. By and large my enthusiasm was vindicated at the Acrobat in
+Publishing seminar held in London on May 16th at the Society of
+Chemical Industry in Belgravia, London. It was there that the penny
+dropped that there are advantages to including colour.  The meeting
+took the typical form of a number of lectures touching on various
+aspects of Acrobat technology and a few hands on demonstrations. In
+addition we were given a 40-page hand-out of the talks, and a Mac or
+MS-DOS floppy with the text in Acrobat format. One of the things which
+the meeting lacked, although it was targeted `for people in the
+publishing and printing industries' and was claimed to `explain what
+Adobe Acrobat technology is', was much explanation of the components
+of Acrobat. The notes did explain, but it might have saved much
+confusion if an initial talk had just explained some of the buzz-words
+and jargon which was about to be unleashed.
+
+The first speaker (a replacement from the published programme) was
+from UK Mail International (part of the group who publish the Mail,
+the Mail on Sunday and the Evening Standard). To my surprise they turn
+out to be very committed to electronic publishing (I really must stop
+underestimating the right's ability to utilise technology:
+Conservative they may be; conservative they are not). One proposal was
+that we may expect to see compilations of back numbers of newspapers
+on CD-ROM in Smith's (in Acrobat format). The less charitable
+whispered that they couldn't imagine wanting back editions of the
+Mail, but the point here was that for hardly any additional cost, the
+newspaper proprietors have another product. Almost equally, one can go
+from that and perhaps have the latest edition transmitted to you
+electronically. They were talking in terms of a typical issue of the
+Evening Standard taking about 10 minutes to download over a 64kbps
+ISDN link. They also suggested that there could be added value by
+including video clips (for example of a winning goal), which are
+clearly not possible in the `standard' version.  What was never really
+suggested was that I might just want specific stories, so that I might
+make up my very own newspaper (this is a suggestion which has been
+around for some years), or that the format that I might wish to read
+on my screen might be different from the one that the sub-editors had
+determined. At least it will be marginally easier reading a tabloid on
+screen than a broadsheet (but no more easier to print).
+
+Rosie Altoft from John Wiley discussed some of their experiences with
+Acrobat.  Wiley used Acrobat in its beta development days. As you
+should know, Wiley has been using \TeX\ for many, many years, and is
+arguably one of the most electronically aware of our national STM
+publishers. Part of Wiley's experience with Acrobat derives from their
+association with the \CJ\ project, which itself is part of the fruit
+of the journal EP-odd (Electronic Publishing: origination,
+dissemination and design\footnote{Those wondering why the name EP-odd
+  was chosen might reflect that the Electronic Publishing conference
+  has a tendency to take place every two years, in even numbered
+  years: a sort of EP-even.}) which they publish. \CJ\ and EP-odd will
+recur in this report. I was not especially clear how much of an
+advantage Acrobat was to Wiley's. Since they have been dealing with
+electronic submission for years, any advantages seemed rather
+incremental rather than revolutionary. The most exciting thing she
+suggested was the ability to cut down the amount of time and reworking
+involved in changes to cover design -- chiefly through the addition of
+the `sticky notes' (or Postit notes) feature. But she did note that
+their New York office had been involved in an experimental scheme to
+allow college lecturers to create their own course material by
+selecting chapters from a wider range of books, and having them
+printed up into the course book, again through Acrobat.  This embodies
+selection and print on demand (or, at least, very short run printing)
+-- things which are definitely in the pipeline.
+
+Philip Smith of Nottingham University Computer Science Department,
+{\em Using Fonts in Acrobat} added to my sum total of Acrobat
+knowledge in a number of ways.  Basically he was describing how
+Acrobat handled fonts, but not harping on about the Multiple Master
+Technology, which he rather took as read. At present Acrobat can
+handle both \PS\ Type~1 and Type~3 fonts, and TrueType fonts. In
+passing, in an earlier edition I suggested that Minion and Myriad had
+been renamed Adobe Sans and Adobe Serif. This appears not to be the
+case. I have at least one document which has Minion, Sans and Serif.
+Philip cleared up one point which had been worrying me: how does
+Acrobat handle non-Latin fonts? Basically it embeds. Embedded fonts
+are those which, for some reason, Acrobat decides to include with the
+document, so that rendition is possible. How does it decide? It will
+not embed the `standard 14': these are Times, Helvetica and Courier in
+their four variations, plus Symbol and Zapf Dingbats: it will embed
+fonts which do not use the Latin (ISO Latin~1) character set: it will
+always embed Type~3 fonts; all others will be approximated through
+Multiple Masters. Almost. You can force the `real' fonts to be
+embedded if you use Distiller (one of the Acrobat suite). You will
+appreciate that there is a legal issue lurking in here. Can I legally
+distribute an Acrobat file which contains an embedded font which has
+been licensed to me, but which may not have been licensed to the
+recipient? Firstly, all Type~1 fonts in the Adobe Type Library (which
+may include those licensed from ITC, Linotype and Monotype) may be
+`freely' embedded in Acrobat files (that's a bit woolly to me);
+secondly, Adobe considers its encryption to be good enough to prevent
+the unscrupulous from extracting the fonts and using them for other
+purposes. But beyond that you do run the risk of violating copyright
+law.  The other piece of key information which Philip gave was how to
+obtain the information about which fonts Acrobat is using for a
+document. Hold down Shift$+$Ctrl (on Windows), or Shift$+$Option (on a
+Mac) while selecting the {\sl Document Info} item from the {\em File}
+menu. A slight catch is that this is a running total: you either have
+to view the whole document page by page first, or do a search for a
+word which doesn't exist (that forces processing of each page).
+Another catch is that if you are viewing your second or third
+document, their fonts will also be listed.
+
+After lunch, Ian Chivers of Kings College London discussed the use of
+Acrobat with Ventura. He was concerned with its use in an academic
+institution, and particularly for the production of large multi-author
+documents.  He noted that Acrobat (in common with other Windows
+products) was resource hungry, requiring something of the order of a
+33\,MHz 80486DX with 8\,Mbyte of memory for serious work. A Distiller
+run on a 40 page document took 4 hours on a 20\,MHz 80386SX with
+5\,Mbyte of memory.  I was interested to see that Ventura was taking
+Acrobat quite seriously to the extent of providing the hooks to
+generate `bookmarks' for tables of contents and indexes, which Acrobat
+can subsequently use.
+
+Leon Harrison (again of Nottingham's Computer Science Department) described
+\CJ. This acronym stands for {\em CD-ROM Acrobat Journals Using
+  Networks}\footnote{The acronym \CJ\ had been established when
+  Acrobat was actually called Carousel, hence Carousel Assisted
+  Journals Using Networks, but what's in a name?}. It is in fact a
+collaborative venture with John Wiley \& Sons and Chapman \& Hall. A
+couple of interesting features emerged in this talk. The major product
+is EP-odd on CD-ROM. EP-odd is archived in \LaTeX. The text remained
+constant in the archive, but the macros evolved. However, they were
+not themselves archived, and when it came to rerun the articles,
+discrepancies became apparent. The extra value which Acrobat form can
+add includes links between documents (or to the table of contents,
+etc) which can be embedded in the \LaTeX\ macros. There are some
+difficulties, since forward references require that they know exactly
+what point they are to refer to (a common enough problem in \LaTeX,
+solved through the {\tt.aux} file, but requiring some more subtle
+maneuvering in the \PS\ which will become Acrobat, apparently).
+Line art had been redrawn and discarded, requiring some scanning in
+from page proofs. One of the other journals in the project is {\em
+  Collaborative Computing}, which is re-keyed into 3B2, although
+authors may submit in \LaTeX\ (given the algorithmic similarity
+between 3B2\footnote{A Santa Barbara beer to the first person to give
+  me the correct explanation for this name; revealer collects, of
+  course.} and \TeX\ this is a bit sad).
+
+The last paper was from the urbane Conrad Taylor, who discussed some
+of the design issues which were highlighted by Acrobat. He made a
+number of points on displaying documents which apply quite widely: you
+can seldom display the whole page and read the body type (I can,
+because I have an A4 screen and {\em Textures}, but not all the world
+is blessed in this way -- however, Conrad was actually talking about
+newspaper formats here, and only would-be newsletters use A4 format,
+so he's right), and therefore have to zoom and scroll. This becomes
+tedious. If the document has colour you need 24-bit colour support.
+Rendering and redrawing can be time consuming, especially for
+graduated tints and complex vector mapped graphics. If it is indeed a
+newspaper, the large size prohibits hard copy at the size for which
+the pages were designed. The diagrams have a level of detail
+appropriate for litho printing, but not for the screen.  He made the
+observation that it would be more effective to reformat a newspaper
+before distributing it in Acrobat format, to take account of some of
+these difficulties. Conrad went on to give an example of designing for
+paper and the screen. Admittedly, the example he provided will come as
+no great surprise to (\La)\TeX\ people, but it is interesting to see
+how far his typesetting tool, FrameMaker, has come. Basically he
+employed some generic  and was able to take the same marked up
+document to produce a screen oriented version and a paper-oriented
+version. What made this interesting was that he did the conversion
+live, and that Frame supports similar tools to Ventura to allow the
+implanting of useful links to support table of contents and other
+navigation aids. Of course, when I say `tables of contents', I don't
+just mean that they exist, I also mean that they are electronically
+linked to the sections to which they refer. It was most agreeable to
+see Conrad defending and promoting the use of generic markup.
+
+All in all, a most useful meeting, attended by close to 100 people.
+The venue was good, with excellent facilities both for the social end
+of the meeting and the presentations. The group might usefully
+consider using this location, if we can fill it!
+
+\subsection{pdf or dvi?}
+It was at this Acrobat meeting that I started to wonder if Leslie
+Lamport's notion some years ago that \TeX\ should produce \PS\
+rather than dvi was not correct. I had always rejected this notion,
+partly on the grounds that \PS\ was a proprietary system, that
+many non-\PS\ printers were out there, and that \PS\
+screen previewers were few and far between. Well, \PS\ is hardly
+proprietary any more: there are so many clones, and the details have
+all been published; there are still lots of non-\PS\ printers,
+but the availability of GhostScript for all the main platforms (Mac,
+Unix and pc/Windows) means that this is not a complete barrier.
+Similarly, the use of GhostView allows \PS\ to be viewed on the
+screen (invaluable for those pesky EPS inclusions). The use of
+GhostScript and GhostView does involve an extra step, but could impose
+a degree of standardisation which could save much effort. I would
+argue that the \LaTeXe\ support for graphics is almost exclusively for
+\PS\ graphics, acknowledging the pre-eminence of this system for
+serious work.
+
+But selecting \PS\ as the `ultimate' output format does not go
+far enough. It should be Acrobat (or more correctly, portable document
+format, pdf).  (\La)\TeX\ should produce pdf. Adobe already produces
+Acrobat viewers for Mac, DOS and Windows. At present they make a small
+charge, but I'm fairly confident that they will soon be part of the
+operating system, or given away with so many applications that we can
+assume their ubiquity. I was given a Seybold CD-ROM in Acrobat format
+with an Acrobat reader for Windows at the seminar. I already have one
+for the Mac which I was given at the launch of Acrobat in London last
+year. 5D Solutions is producing a freeware Acrobat reader for Unix.
+One of the advantages of the Acrobat reader is that it will allow you
+to print to \PS\ and non-\PS\ printers -- and if the
+document has been created by Distiller, that means that your embedded
+EPS will also be printed out. In other words, we have a \PS\
+interpreter in software (just like GhostView and GhostScript). I've
+already commented on Acrobat's font substitution. Acrobat supports a
+hypertext framework (pdfmark) which allows navigation through the
+document. As yet it does not support intra-document links, but that
+may come in time.
+
+If the NTS (New Typesetting System) project has any imagination, it
+will see beyond the narrow confines of creating a system to create
+even finer masterpieces of the publishing art and will eagerly embrace
+the technologies present here to create a system for practical
+examples of the {\em electronic} publishing craft. The opportunities
+are there. We can only hope their minds are not yet closed.
+
+\subsection{Size isn't important}
+What is the difference in size between {\tt.tex} {\tt .dvi}, {\tt.pdf}
+and {\tt.ps} files? I compared only one file, a draft of the one which
+contains this column. There are a number of things to watch. 
+A {\tt.pdf} may contain embedded files, which will obviously make it
+larger. I used Blue Sky's Type~1 Computer Modern in my preparation. In
+theory it should not have been embedded, and my checks indicate it was
+not (I viewed it on another platform which does not have these fonts
+-- in fact, which does not have \TeX\ on it).  The {\tt.pdf} figure is
+from using pdfWriter, not Distiller. I would expect Distiller to
+produce slightly more compact code.  The {\tt.ps} figure is from dvips
+on a Unix box. \PS\ is a notoriously difficult beast to tie
+down, since what you are probably measuring has more to do with
+optimisation decisions made by the drivers' authors.
+
+\begin{center}\footnotesize
+\begin{tabular}{|lr|}
+\hline
+\multicolumn{1}{|c}{file}&\multicolumn{1}{c|}{bytes}\\
+\hline
+\tt.tex&32682\\
+\tt.dvi&46728\\
+\tt.pdf&103248\\
+\tt.ps &115412\\
+\hline
+\end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+\section{Editor nods}
+Neither our revered and esteemed editor, nor John Bowsher, need lose
+sleep that the \TeX\ logo is restricted by Knuthian fiat to Computer
+Modern. As long ago as 1986 (\TUB, 7(2), p.101) Knuth had recognised
+that the kerning and lowering amount for the logo were font specific,
+even within CM. He went on to say `the plain \TeX\ macros are
+specifically oriented to Computer Modern fonts. Other typefaces call
+for variations in the backspacing, in order to preserve the logo's
+general flavor'.  He then goes on to note that he has typeset the logo
+in a variant of Times Roman for his {\em Computer Journal} paper `and
+the standard \verb|\TeX| macro worked fine.'
+
+This seems to suggest that (a)~Knuth had long ago realised
+the problem, and (b)~he does not feel that the
+\TeX\ logo should be restricted to CM (sigh).
+
+\end{Article}
+\endinput
+\section{Offizin}
+Whenever I pontificate about publishing with
+\TeX, someone will always bring me to earth by pointing out that the
+proceedings of the 1988 \TeX\ conference in Exeter took an
+interminable time to hit the bookshops.  The figure is about two years
+(I was busy\dots).  It was therefore a pleasant relief to receive {\sl
+  Offizin} a few months or so ago.  This is a production of {\sc
+  Dante}, the german-speaking
+\TeX\ group. It is a publication designed to disseminate some of the
+lectures given at the group's `\TeX\ days'. I worked out just when I
+presented the paper which is produced in translation: it was February
+1991. That makes the \TeX88 book look much less laggardly! Of course,
+what I had to say, about {\em \TeX\ in Europe and America}, is
+hopelessly out of date, but when it appears in my list of
+publications, no-one will know that!
+
+Putting this schadenfreude aside, it is an
+interesting volume. It should be the first in
+a series, a series published by Addison Wesley
+(Germany). According to other bits of Addison Wesley,
+they don't do conference proceedings, so someone did
+some fancy footwork to get this through. Well done.
+
+One quote I managed to extract was `typography
+has its experts, but they have no audience'.
+
+
+
+\section{Despair?}
+Has \TUB\ sunk? It is now May 23rd and no sign has been seen of the
+first edition of 1994. When last year's final copies came out more or
+less on time I had supposed that it had finally managed to get its act
+together and was to be produced on a regular and reliable basis.
+Clearly I was deluded. What is the problem? I refuse to accept the
+usual story that it is a complex journal and that to achieve the
+standards required the devoted and underpaid or unpaid editorial
+volunteers have to devote limitless time and energy to it. \TUB\ is
+dying at the altar of quality. If the journal is to have any
+credibility it has to come out regularly. Maybe it really is too
+complex and \TeX\ is not really up to the production. Commercial
+publishers -- to whom we direct much encouragement to use \TeX\ --
+could not allow themselves to be sucked into this cuckoo's nest.  TUG
+has to try to be realistic and trim the sails of \TUB\ so that it can
+leave port. There are enough enemies of TUG, inside and outside the
+user group, who wish to see it dismembered, and who do not need to be
+able to point to \TUB\ to see graphic demonstration (or
+non-demonstration) of the health of the whole organisation.
+\section{Euro\TeX}
+The publicity for the forthcoming Euro\TeX\ meeting in Poland has
+dropped the short passage which described last year's Aston TUG
+meeting as one of the Euro\TeX\ series. You may wonder why Aston was
+not a Euro\TeX\ meeting. After all, it was a \TeX\ meeting in Europe.
+There is no body which chooses a site for Euro\TeX. It has been a
+voluntary and piecemeal choice which seems to have worked, to some
+extent. When I organised the meeting in Exeter in 1988, I didn't have
+to ask anyone, although I had volunteered to organise the meeting when
+I was in Strasbourg in 1986. But basically the reason Aston was not
+Euro\TeX\ was that the President of one of the European groups decided
+it must not be. If I recall correctly\footnote{On reflection, I
+  suspect this suffered from retelling and translation. Surely no-one
+  could be so arrogant? The general flavour should be that he was not
+  in favour of such a move.}, he said he would `instruct his members
+not to attend' if it were called Euro\TeX. I find it all rather sad.
+Here was a great opportunity for TUG and the European groups to be
+seen to be working together.  The cynical might suppose that was
+exactly what he didn't want to be seen to happen.
+
+
-- 
cgit v1.2.3

