gabriel rosenkoetter on Thu, 11 Oct 2001 18:50:09 +0200


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Re: [PLUG] Postscript, Ghostscript, and pdf


On Thu, Oct 11, 2001 at 12:34:37PM -0400, Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
> 	See my message to Walt for more details and other issues - 
> but just drag & drop the PS file on the desktop printer icon and it 
> will print ;).

On Mac OS at least, you are flat-out wrong as of 8.5 or so (when I
stopped using Mac OS).

I *think* I've tried this in Mac OS 9.1, but I'm not positive.

> 	First and foremost, PS is a page description language, 
> meaning that it explicitly places objects on the page rather than 
> HTML which lets the brower/client choose where things go.
> 
> 	And Second, PS is a full blown programming language with 
> variables, loops, conditionals, etc.  That allows for some AMAZING 
> dynamic processing that simply isn't possible with HTML (though 
> DHTML/DOM/JavaScript start to close the gap).

Yeah, maybe what I wanted was more "Postscript is a g[l]orified
SGML". (Note the optional l, there, btw... I'm not suggesting that
hand-writing a document in PS is any kind of fun. :^>)

> 	Don't get me wrong, DPS was a VERY cool idea (in it's day) 
> and definitely helped Steve sell cubes & pizza boxes.  Unfortunately, 
> it's the wrong approach to the problem (IMO) since using a 
> programming language (PS) as your real-time screen display engine has 
> too much overhead and potential security issues.

Huh. And giving a userland process access to your video card's DMA
(and, by way of that, all memory), which anyone running XFree86 is
doing, is better somehow?

;^>

-- 
       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net

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