[lug] January 1, 2000 - BLUG Meeting Summary

[Wayde Allen]

                   Boulder Linux User's Group Meeting Summary
                   ==========================================


Attendance: 48

Synopsis:  Michael Hammel gave a report on the Colorado Linux Information Quest
(CLIQ) and their Linux Expo scheduled for April 1, 2000.  More information
on CLIQ can be found at their web site http://www.thecliq.org/.  Other
announcements for Linux activities were: 

   - February 19th CLUE Installfest

   - Denver Computer & Technology Showcase (Internet Expo), 
     April 26 - 27, 2000
     http://www.techshows.com/denver.htm

   - Possible MiniExpo/Info Festival sponsored by the CU Buffalo Chip
     (Dates yet to be determined)

Anyone that wants to help with any of these events can contact me
<wallen at boulder.nist.gov>. 

The featured speaker for the evening was Dave Lovering
<lovering at boulder.nist.gov>, talking about typesetting with TeX/LaTeX. 
TeX is a document typesetting system Developed by Donald Knuth.  LaTeX is
an extension of TeX developed by Leslie Lamport that simplifies some of
the underlying complexities of TeX through the use of definable macro
commands.  One of the important features of LaTeX/TeX is that it is based
on logical document style rather than following the so called "What you
See is What you Get" (WYSIWYG) model.  A quote from the book  

   Lamport, Leslie, A Document Preparation System LaTeX - Users Guide and
   Reference Manual, Addison-Wesley, 1994, pg.5-6

reads:

   Traditionally, an author provides a publisher with a typed manuscript.
   The publisher's typographic designer decides how the manuscript is to
   be formatted, specifying the length of the printed line, what style of
   type to use, how much space to leave above and below section headings,
   and many other things that determine the printed document's appearance. 
   The designer writes a series of instructions to the typesetter, who uses
   them to decide where on the page to put each of the author's words and
   symbols.  In the old days, typesetters produced a matrix of metal type
   for each page; today they produce computer files.  In either case,
   their output is used to control the machine that does the actual
   typesetting. 

   LaTeX is your typographic designer, and TeX is its typesetter.

Another quote from page 7 of the same book discusses the differences
between the LaTeX and WYSISWYG approaches:

   WYSIWYG programs replace LaTeX's logical design with "visual design".
   Visual design is fine for short, simple documents like letters and
   memos.  It is not good for more complex documents such as scientific
   papers.

Dave gave us an overview of the system along with demos of some of the
various features.  You can visit the URL
http://tug2.cs.umb.edu/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/catalogue.html to learn
more about LaTeX/TeX.

The meeting ended with our usual door prize drawing and question and
answer session.

Next Meeting:  February 10, 2000, Topic to be announced