> But IMHO direct programming is almost always better... Ok, it's more
> work, but the results are better.
I agree 100%. Like your example of HTML -- I would never _consider_ a WYSIWYG
HTML editor for anything because doing it in a text editor is so much
quicker and you're not limited by any one wysiwig app.
"Direct programming" may even be the strong point of Linux for any of these
areas, because the boundaries of these helper apps aren't there.
But the question remains: is there a limit to this? For instance the xfig
example again. Sure, there are many things you can do with direct coding in
PostScript you can't do anywhere else, but xfig makes a lot of tasks very
quick and easy.
> IMHO the same counts for Povray.
I think what may be necessary for Povray and all these other apps which
require programming are good HOWTOs. I suspect that many are already
written, it's just a matter of finding them. Using plain TeX, for instance,
could be a daunting task for a first-time user. It was for me until I found
the excellent document "A Gentle Introdcution to TeX." It's the best TeX
primer I've ever read, and will have you up and running in no time.
