From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 5245 invoked from network); 10 Aug 2022 17:44:42 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 10 Aug 2022 17:44:42 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1D9C1406E3; Thu, 11 Aug 2022 03:44:37 +1000 (AEST) Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (fourwinds.com [63.64.179.162]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 484DB4012F for ; Thu, 11 Aug 2022 03:44:33 +1000 (AEST) Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.16.1/8.16.1) with ESMTP id 27AHiW5F1220327 for ; Wed, 10 Aug 2022 10:44:32 -0700 DKIM-Filter: OpenDKIM Filter v2.11.0 darkstar.fourwinds.com 27AHiW5F1220327 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=fourwinds.com; s=default; t=1660153472; bh=VALskwyqAJCEgtX9zxa7JEfbJp2uRgPkypuHkd+gvco=; h=From:To:Subject:In-reply-to:References:Date:From; b=Fjc7gvdwDYkmlCmD0Z48urrbakXrianTJzBmrhqQv/pwcEherpZ1Kc/A0ybi0WK+3 anHXun79i4AWYm8YGWlqYmQdljkUMESAOeA9/X35d5UnmZfRYi1dZOrcf8520yOMHQ oIFooc4yHZwZ9Ne4Xzsl/mWJrz9MQ0o+1LZvT1sM= Received: from darkstar.fourwinds.com (jon@localhost) by darkstar.fourwinds.com (8.16.1/8.15.2/Submit) with ESMTP id 27AHiWOT1220324 for ; Wed, 10 Aug 2022 10:44:32 -0700 Message-Id: <202208101744.27AHiWOT1220324@darkstar.fourwinds.com> From: Jon Steinhart To: tuhs@tuhs.org In-reply-to: <202208101737.27AHbupN011923@freefriends.org> References: <202208101505.27AF5Ko7020961@freefriends.org> <20220810171417.GY21168@mcvoy.com> <202208101737.27AHbupN011923@freefriends.org> Comments: In-reply-to arnold@skeeve.com message dated "Wed, 10 Aug 2022 11:37:56 -0600." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <1220322.1660153472.1@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2022 10:44:32 -0700 X-JON-SPAM: local delivery Message-ID-Hash: O2INCB43QQ66YNM6O34INF7S4XMRNZLG X-Message-ID-Hash: O2INCB43QQ66YNM6O34INF7S4XMRNZLG X-MailFrom: jon@fourwinds.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: SNOBOL and RATSNO [ really pic ] List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: arnold@skeeve.com writes: > Oh, I'm not arguing with any of this. I'm merely noting that > you are unusual in your ability to easily visualize pic results > from looking at the code. Not at all. I'm a big fan of pic too. And I've written preprocessors for it, such as one that generated GANTT charts. To me, the best feature of pic is invisible elements. As Larry pointed out, xfig uses absolute coordinates and is a mess. When I use pic, I usually start out with a big invisible box and hang things off of it. That makes it trivial to do things like shrinking or growing just by changing the invisible box size. In my opinion, the biggest failing of pic comes from the one-way connection to troff. It's really hard to do things like "box that fits this text". Jon