[Wylug-discuss] October meeting......

[Dave Fisher]

On Fri, Sep 23, 2005 at 06:56:02PM +0100, steve kirk wrote:
<snip>
> DTP and equally happy to squash 
> anyone who tried to persuade me to use TEX or LATEX instead
<snip>

I really think you should do the scribus talk (I'm a big fan of the
package), but I would suggest you steer clear of generically slagging
off TeX and LateX.

If you want to debunk the idea that DTP and Typsetting are analogous
then, fine, go ahead, fire away!

If, on the other hand, you want to argue that TeX and LaTeX have _no_
role in modern document production  ... prepare yourself for for some
serious differences of opinion.

I would suggest that anyone who was serious about publishing stuff for
academic purposes should prefer the beautiful typsetting and re-usable
structural markup of LaTeX over DTP eye candy ... LateX will save you
time and present your arguments/data more elegantly than any DTP package
could ever manage.

Indeed, I'd extend that to include any intellectually rigourous domain
in which the 'meaning of words' was more important than imagery and the
'presentation of meaning'.

As far as I am concerned, it's a question of 'horses for courses'.

If I wanted to market some idea, product or service, I'd choose a DTP
package every time ... and, what is more, I'd choose Qwark over Scribus.

If I wanted to express my ideas and evidence unambiguously, or if I
wanted to transform the text into other formats, I'd go for LaTeX and
XML.

If I wanted to market stuff as best I could, while using only free
software, I'd choose scribus.

Dave