musings-perception.tex /size: 8603 b    last modification: 2021-10-28 13:50
1% language=us runpath=texruns:manuals/musings
2
3\definefontfeature[ligatures][liga=yes,mode=node]
4
5\startcomponent musings-perception
6
7\environment musings-style
8
9\startchapter[title=Advertising \TEX]
10
11I can get upset when I hear \TEX ies boast about the virtues of \TEX\ compared to
12for instance Microsoft Word. Not that I feel responsible for defending a program
13that I never use(d) but attacking something for no good reason makes not much
14sense to me. It is especially annoying when the attack is accompanied by a
15presentation that looks pretty bad in design and typography. The best
16advertisements for \TEX\ should of course come from outside the \TEX\ community,
17by people impressed by its capabilities. How many \TEX ies can really claim that
18Word is bad when they never tried to make something in it with a similar learning
19curve as they had in \TEX\ or the same amount of energy spent in editing and
20perfecting a word|-|processor|-|made document.
21
22In movies where computer technology plays a role one can encounter weird
23assumptions about what computers and programs can do. Run into a server room,
24pull one disk out of a \RAID-5 array and get all information from it. Connect
25some magic device to a usb port of a phone and copy all data from it in seconds.
26Run a high speed picture or fingerprint scan on a computer (probably on a remote
27machine) and show all pictures flying by. Okay, it's not so far from other
28unrealistic aspects in movies, like talking animals, so maybe it is just a
29metaphor for complexity and speed. When zapping channels on my television I saw
30\in{figure}[fig:tex-in-movie] and as the media box permits replay I could make a
31picture. I have no clue what the movie was about or what movie it was so a
32reference is lacking here. Anyway it's interesting that seeing a lot of \TEX\
33code flying by can impress someone: the viewer, even if no \TEX ie will ever see
34that on the console unless in some error or tracing message and even then it's
35hard to get that amount. So, the viewer will never realize that what is seen is
36definitely not what a \TEX ie wants to see.
37
38\startplacefigure[title={\TEX\ in a movie},reference=fig:tex-in-movie]
39    \externalfigure[tex-in-movie.jpg][height=8cm]
40\stopplacefigure
41
42So, as that kind of free advertisement doesn't promote \TEX\ well, what of an
43occasional mentioning of \TEX\ in highly|-|regarded literature? When reading
44\quotation {From bacteria to Bach and back, the evolution of minds} by Daniel
45Dennett I ran into the following:
46
47\startquotation
48In Microsoft Word, for instance, there are the typographical operations of
49superscript and subscript, as illustrated by
50
51\startnarrower
52base\high{power}
53\stopnarrower
54
55and
56
57\startnarrower
58human\low{female}
59\stopnarrower
60
61But try to add another superscript to base\high{power}\emdash it {\em should}
62work, but it doesn't! In mathematics, you can raise powers to powers to powers
63forever, but you can't get Microsoft Word to display these (there are other
64text|-|editing systems, such as TeX, that can). Now, are we sure that human
65languages make use of true recursion, or might some or all of them be more like
66Microsoft Word? Might our interpretation of grammars as recursive be rather an
67elegant mathematical idealization of the actual \quotation {moving parts} of a
68grammar?
69\stopquotation
70
71Now, that book is a wonderfully interesting read and the author often refers to
72other sources. When one reads some reference (with a quote) then one assumes that
73what one reads is correct, and I have no reason to doubt Dennett in this. But
74this remark about \TEX\ has some curious inaccuracies. \footnote {Of course one
75can wonder in general that when one encounters such an inaccuracy, how valid
76other examples and conclusions are. However, consistency in arguments and
77confirmation by other sources can help to counter this.}
78
79First of all a textual raise or lower is normally not meant to be recursive.
80Nesting would have interesting consequences for the interline space so one will
81avoid it whenever possible. There are fonts that have superscript and subscript
82glyphs and even \UNICODE\ has slots for a bunch of characters. I'm not sure what
83Word does: take the special glyph or use a scaled down copy?
84
85Then there is the reference to \TEX\ where we can accept that the \quotation {E}
86is not lowered but just kept as a regular \quotation {e}. Actually the mentioning
87of nested scripts refers to typesetting math and that's what the superscripts and
88subscripts are for in \TEX. In math mode however, one will normally raise or
89lower symbols and numbers, not words: that happens in text mode.
90
91While Word will use the regular text font when scripting in text mode, a \TEX\
92user will either have to use a macro to make sure that the right size (and font)
93is used, or one can revert to math mode. But how to explain that one has to enter
94math and then explicitly choose the right font? Think of this:
95
96\startbuffer
97efficient\high{efficient} or
98efficient$^{\text{efficient}}$ or \par
99{\bf efficient\high{efficient} or
100efficient$^{\text{efficient}}$}
101\stopbuffer
102
103\typebuffer
104
105Which gives (in Cambria)
106
107\getbuffer
108
109Now this,
110
111\startbuffer
112efficient\high{efficient\high{efficient}} or
113efficient$^{\text{efficient$^{\text{efficient}}$}}$ or \par
114{\bf efficient\high{efficient\high{efficient}} or
115efficient$^{\text{efficient$^{\text{efficient}}$}}$}
116\stopbuffer
117
118\typebuffer
119
120will work okay but the math variant is probably quite frightening at a glance for
121an average Word user (or beginner in \TEX) and I can understand why someone would
122rather stick to click and point.
123
124\getbuffer
125
126Oh, and it's tempting to try the following:
127
128\startbuffer
129efficient{\addff{f:superiors}efficient}
130\stopbuffer
131
132\typebuffer
133
134but that only works with fonts that have such a feature, like Cambria:
135
136\blank {\switchtobodyfont[cambria]\getbuffer} \blank
137
138To come back to Dennett's remark: when typesetting math in Word, one just has to
139switch to the math editing mode and one can have nested scripts! And, when using
140\TEX\ one should not use math mode for text scripts. So in the end in both
141systems one has to know what one is doing, and both systems are equally capable.
142
143The recursion example is needed in order to explain how (following recent ideas
144from Chomsky) for modern humans some recursive mechanism is needed in our
145wetware. Now, I won't go into details about that (as I can only mess up an
146excellent explanation) but if you want to refer to \TEX\ in some way, then
147expansion \footnote{Expanding macros actually works well with tail recursion.} of
148(either combined or not) snippets of knowledge might be a more interesting model
149than recursion, because much of what \TEX\ is capable of relates to expansion.
150But I leave that to others to explore. \footnote {One quickly starts thinking of
151how \cs {expandafter}, \type {noexpand}, \type {unexpanded}, \type {protected}
152and other primitives can be applied to language, understanding and also
153misunderstanding.}
154
155Now, comparing \TEX\ to Word is always kind of tricky: Word is a text editor with
156typesetting capabilities and \TEX\ is a typesetting engine with programming
157capabilities. Recursion is not really that relevant in this perspective. Endless
158recursion in scripts makes little sense and even \TEX\ has its limits there: the
159\TEX\ math engine only distinguishes three levels (text, script and scriptscript)
160and sometimes I'd like to have a level more. Deeper nesting is just more of
161scriptscript unless one explicitly enforces some style. So, it's recursive in the
162sense that there can be many levels, but it also sort of freezes at level three.
163
164\startplacefigure[title={Nicer than \TEX},reference=fig:nicer-than-tex]
165    \externalfigure[mathematics.png][width=\textwidth]
166\stopplacefigure
167
168I love \TEX\ and I like what you can do with it and it keeps surprising me. And
169although mathematics is part of that, I seldom have to typeset math myself. So, I
170can't help that \in {figure} [fig:nicer-than-tex] impresses me more. It even has
171the so|-|familiar|-|to|-|\TEX ies dollar symbols in it: the poem \quotation
172{Poetry versus Orchestra} written by Hollie McNish, music composed by Jules
173Buckley and artwork by Martin Pyper (I have the \DVD\ but you can also find it on
174\YOUTUBE). It reminds me of Don Knuth's talk at a \TUG\ meeting. In \TUGBOAT\
17531:2 (2010) you can read Don's announcement of his new typesetting engine i\TEX:
176\quotation {Output can be automatically formatted for lasercutters, embroidery
177machines, \THREED\ printers, milling machines, and other \CNC\ devices \unknown}.
178Now that is something that Word can't do!
179
180\stopcomponent
181