Re: The inners of Lout

[Jeff Kingston]

On Sun, 24 Mar 2002 23:49:36 +0300 (MSK), DervishD wrote:
  > 
  >     Hello Jeff :))
  > 
  >     This may be a 'strange' post, but the last messages of this list
  > have made me think about the inner workings of Lout. And please,
  > excuse my poor english, but I just use it for programming ;))
  > 
  >     I've read about Lout not doing well with tables (just an example,
  > I don't remember clearly the issue), having problems with some
  > things, etc... I've used Lout for a while (less than a year, anyway)
  > and it always seemed quite good and stable for me, but I only use it
  > for writing letters and reports. So my question is this: what are the
  > known problems with Lout (that is, things that will render bad, like
  > the diagrams in some situations) if I don't use any include file
  > (that is, I only use it's primitives and operators, never include a
  > package)? What things should I expect to render bad or far from
  > perfect?

There are some particular problems with bugs in the tables packages
which can be worked around for the most part.  There are obscurities
in the language design in the areas of macros and galleys which mostly
don't trouble the users of the standard packages.  The input and output
formats accepted/generated are quite limited, basically to things in
the PostScript world.

The general question "Is it safe for me to move my enterprise application
from the existing system to Lout?" is really not a fair one.  You have
to try it and see.  My main suggestion is that you should used the
standard packages even in your machine-generated Lout.  I do, all the
time, and it works well for me.

Jeff