From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/2572 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Vaughan Pratt Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: graphics Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 21:26:08 -0800 Message-ID: <200402250526.i1P5Q8gA007761@coraki.Stanford.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241018755 4789 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:25:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:25:55 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Feb 27 11:16:20 2004 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:16:20 -0400 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.10) id 1Awjfr-000540-00 for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:13:11 -0400 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.6.3 04/04/2003 with nmh-1.0.4 Original-Sender: cat-dist@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 38 Original-Lines: 45 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:2572 Archived-At: >My favorite method is to draw figures in xfig, then export the result as >LaTeX picture code and edit the text to take advantage of LaTeX's >text processing capabilities, fonts and special symbols. >It would be quite suitable for flow chart graphics. >D. Yetter Xfig is pretty convenient, but one can get a tad impatient with xfig's imprecision after a while. The time it takes to drag a vertex into position with acceptable precision tends in practice to be several times what it takes to simply type that position in by hand if you can see right away which lattice point it has to be. If you're a Picasso in such things then starting off with xfig isn't so bad, but if you're more of a Mondrian you might prefer to work in Latex's picture environment from the get-go. As with xypic, choosing a scale that makes the coordinates meaningful integers helps a lot here, e.g. being able to coordinatize the vertices of a diamond as (1,0), (0,1), (-1,0), (0,-1), or putting the inputs to an AND gate at (0,1) and (0,3) and the output at (4,2), or putting the vertices of a Hasse diagram at small lattice points. The only other widely supported language I know that's expressive enough to write a complete macro library in 20 lines for capabilities like flowcharts, digital or analog circuits, and lattice diagrams and that interoperates smoothly with Latex is PostScript. That works too, the main downside compared to programming directly in Latex's picture environment (for those using pdflatex) is the external file needed in the use of epstopdf plus includegraphics. (I'm using both in the paper I'm currently working on, mainly for fear of running out of Tex's memory with the more complex figures. Not that either are great programming languages per se, actually they kind of suck in that regard, thank you Don, Leslie, John, and Chuck!) The above comment about picking the right scale applies equally to Latex's picture environment and PostScript. When your diagrams are sufficiently like the ones that xypic, diagram.tex, and diagrams.tex are designed for, those are pretty good too. But they're not really conceived of as programming languages, making their usefulness inversely proportional to the distance between their kind of diagrams and yours. Vaughan Pratt