| David Kastrup 2007-10-26, 4:23 am |
| Brian Blackmore <blb8@po.cwru.edu> writes:
> I would be happy to disagree with him on several points, in
> particular as regards to the programming language TeX. As I quickly
> glance at his original rant on his web page, I see many other things
> that seem to be misunderstood. Perhaps if I were to look at his
> background and qualifications, some of it would become clear.
>
> In any case, since this is the TeX channel, I will mention that I
> think TeX is an excellent programming language
Uh no, it isn't. It is reasonably flexible for macro/input
transformation. It is also quite good for typesetting using its fixed
algorithms programmed in Pascal.
But as a programming language, it is a steaming pile of crap. And
that's not least because it is a team from a blind and a lame
programming system: only TeX's stomach can _affect_ a variable, but
only TeX's mouth can _look_ at a variable and make decisions based on
its values, decisions for which a resulting action again can only be
done by the blind stomach. Both systems kick in at different points
of time and different circumstances. And you must not employ the
stomach in the middle of typesetting a word, or kernings and ligatures
will break.
> Most of these people would garner nothing but benefit from having to
> spend time _thinking_, and that is one thing that TeX programming
> requires.
I think that one should not promulgate alcoholism and depression in
that manner. Programming TeX really sucks, and its creator Donald
Knuth has expressed his amazement at what tasks people actually have
bothered implementing in TeX (rather than in Pascal or whatever) and
says that it probably had been a mistake from him to let himself be
prodded into adding the basics for making programming, however awful,
basically possible in TeX.
--
David Kastrup
|