25 Sep
2005
25 Sep
'05
3:55 p.m.
For several years Don Lancaster wrote a column in
Computer Shopper
extolling the virtues of PostScript as a programming langauge.
In the 80's there were several computer systems that used
postscript as the visual display medium. Much nicer than any
raster-based description.
PDF is superior in drawing/font primitives but it does not qualify
as a general purpose programming language at all.
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is very interesting right now. It's
sort-of like graphics in SGML/XML. And you can embed Javascript to
add general-purpose programming. Combined with the web (a couple
browsers like Mozilla can be built with native support for SVG and there
are plug-ins for browsers that aren't as technically advanced) it's
a powerful tool.
Tim.