Wither TeX? (was Re:Last typewriter factory in the world shuts its doors)

[Stewart Russell]

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org> wrote:


> Of course, in the digital realm the very concept of the page is
> backwards-compatibility hack that may itself be replaced by other navigation
> tools, just as the traditional index in books has already been made
> redundant by the user's ability to do full-text searches.
>
>
But a full-text search doesn't replace a thematic index. Full-text search
might catch all the instances of the word "pedantic", but it doesn't help me
with the "see also: neckbeard". ;-)

Ah, there's the rub... what's "proper"?
>

Sadly, good book typography is something you shouldn't notice. It's only
when it gets really bad do you see it.


This kind of thing is easy to verify -- the HTML/CSS spec certainly allows
> for orphans <http://xhtml.com/en/css/reference/orphans/> and widows<http://xhtml.com/en/css/reference/widows/>.
> So if a content provider cares to want them, the browser (or ereader) will
> obey.
>

So knowing how to add "p {orphans: 3;}" to my CSS makes me Jan Tschichold?

With the narrow screens that e-readers currently have, hy­phen­ation
is crit­ical in getting the information density on a page up there for
rapid reading. I'll bet that, even though e-readers al­low for
hy­phen­ation con­trol, 99% of users won't change them from the
dull defaults. And yes, I de­lib­erately wrote this para us­ing
what I under­stand to be HTML's best shot at soft hy­phen­ation.
Craptastic, no?

That's my point.It isn't -- and it can't be -- what is needed in textual
> content delivery going forward.
>

If your plans include paper output, TeX might make a very good formatting
backend.

Once e-readers get rid of the "Loading ..." wait time as you open up a new
book and the FLASH-lookit-me-I'm-a-Tek-4014-taking-all-day-to-refresh page
turning, I'll use one. Until then, I'll be in the stacks.

cheers,
 Stewart

-- 
http://scruss.com/blog/ - 73 de VA3PID
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