Re: evidence for the quality/impact of Lout

[Daren Scot Wilson]

Lout has been a valuable time-saving, effort-saving tool for me.

   Most of all, Lout has been useful in the data acquisition/data analysis
project I'm creating for my current client, a very large well-known
manufacturer that I'm working for via an agency.   While there are many data
analysis packages available (N-Code, Matlab, etc) and many software libraries,
they all missed the mark one way or another for my client.  None could be
automated to the degree we needed, while also being usable in an interactive
fashion with Visual Basic, with the flexibility and features needed at an
acceptable cost, and with source code.  So I wrote a whole new system from
scratch.  
   For the report generation part of this system, I didn't want to reinvent any
wheels, so among my best ideas is to try  Lout.  It can handle page layout
details, fonts and alignment, line up columns, and all that.  It's data
plotting isn't quite good enough for us, but I can create special plots by
writing Postscript which can then feed right into the Lout script.   
   Lout is simple and pleasant to use, although not quite easy enough for a
mechanical engineer unwilling to learn anything new, it comes a lot closer than
TeX or other systems.   And we can't even consider nonsense like Microsoft
Word, Word Perfect or other proprietary file formats, because of their
difficulties, lack of software to manipulate them, platform dependence, cost,
and unnessecary baggage.   We can't use only Postscript by itself, as it's too
much coding and detail.  Lout appears to be the perfect tool to use as a
"black  box" component in our system, hiding details we don't care to go into,
yet flexible and open enough to be easily customized and integrated with other
software.  
   This work is still in the experimental stage, and I have some other
approaches to consider (including re-inventing wheels; sometimes one needs
oddly shaped wheels.)   Since the system is proprietary (for now), there are no
academic journal citations or web page URLs I can give, but since other
manufacturers are interested in what we've accomplished already maybe we'll
write a paper later this year.

  Also, I've settled on Lout for my personal mathematical writings - It's
simpler than TeX, the results look just as good, and it's more modern, more
suitable for currently available machines;  TeX was designed back when no
machine has as much as one meg of RAM, and before many things about usability
and finding the right level of interfacing between man and machine were
discovered.  TeX requires too low a level of detail; Lout is just right.  
Point-and-click WYSIWIG word processors work at too high a level for my taste,
not enough detailed control over some things, and can't be automated or have
their files be written or read by other programs.   BTW, I also groff for some
writings; On most days, I like even this better than TeX.


-- 
Daren Scot Wilson
address@hidden 
www.newcolor.com
----
"A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for"
                                            -- William Shedd