NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/lang/postscri/5572

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!ukma!wupost!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!asuacad!aubxg
Organization: Arizona State University
Date: Tuesday, 17 Nov 1992 13:19:58 MST
From: Ben Goren <[e-mail]>
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Who bakes the Best PostScript?
References:  <[e-mail]>
Lines: 25

(Sorry I can't quote from the original article--this newsreader is
somewhat primitive....)
As far as the worst PostScript goes, I'd say that Finale (a music
notation program for the Macintosh) has to win the prize hands down.
I'd even go so far as to say that it's the worst programming I've
ever seen, and I'm including my own feeble attemps at BASIC on an
Apple II almost a decade ago.

What makes PostScript "good"? I'd say that, first of all, it must
conform to the DSC. Even hand-written code can do this quite nicely,
and it gives a good structure to the program. Beyond that, my personal
preference is for short, highly-tuned code that (hopefully) executes
quickly. Rather than individually draw a hundred squares of varying
shades of gray on the page, as in a color calibration sheet, I'd try
to get the whole thing in a single line with a couple of for loops.

I generally don't like to see things repeated in any computer language.
If you can type out the same line, with minor modifications, a dozen
times to get what you want, the computer can probably do the same thing,
but quicker, if you just have it loop. Most machines now have some sort
of instruction or data cache that make such things highly efficient.

Of course, all this must be balanced with the realities of the situation.
If I needed to get something done in the next five minutes, I'd probably
use cut-and-paste, and figure the extra interpretation time is worth it.