On 10/05/06, Derek Smithies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi, learning postscript is an excellent thing to do.
Well, for a few people maybe. I'm not sure it's valid as a general comment.
The blue and red books are really really well written. Just reading these is a lesson in how to write good clear documentation.
Yes. I had a class where the students were required to write a lexical analyser for postscript from the lexical specifications. I wrote the program that checked their programs for correctness. Despite the clear, unambiguous descriptions, no one, as I recall, got it 100% correct - there's a few curly rules in there.
knowing a bit of postscript is quite useful - there are times when it is necessary to transform graphics manually.
Yes. I've done it myself. Hence the pain comment.
One particular example is when you deal with postscript figures in LaTeX. Some postscript generation programs generate incorrect boundingboxes, and this makes the encapsulation of the figure in LaTeX plain difficult. > So you like inflicting pain on yourself? It is not pain. it is evidence I still have the mental agility to learn new concepts.
It was a joke, OK? I like fiddling with esoteric languages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language) as much as the next geek, and PS might be OK in its narrow domain, but outside that it's not really suitable as a general purpose language. There are plenty of other good languages to choose from. Even for diehard HP48 owners. Cheers, Carl.
========================================================= On Wed, 10 May 2006, Carl Cerecke wrote: > On 09/05/06, yuri <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On a happier note --- I've started learning PostScript and I'm > > delighted to find the syntax is almost identical to my trusty HP48s > > calculator I've been carrying around for the last 14 years. What a > > perfect language for my needs. > > So you like inflicting pain on yourself? > > There are words for people like you :-) > > Cheers, > Carl. > -- Derek Smithies Ph.D. Any fool can write code that IndraNet Technologies Ltd. a computer can understand. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Good programmers write code ph +64 3 365 6485 that humans can understand. Web: http://www.indranet-technologies.com/ Martin Fowler
