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Adobe has been the trendsetter of the last decade with respect to new ep
technologies.
I believe that the multi-media information technology will take off in the next
century. Much is known under the buzzword hypertext. See the special issue of the
Communications of the ACM for an introductory survey. As a TeXie it is fun to
ponder about what niche there will be for TeX. At the various TUG meetings people
are concerned about the future of TeX and share their doubts and optimisms. From
that the following anthology
- LaTeX is the future, forget about TeX
- make (La)TeX available on low-cost machines
- embed TeX etc. in working environments
- improve TeX, in short keep it alive
- provide wysiwyg user interfaces
- increase the number of (organized) (La)TeX users
- get (La)TeX accepted by publishers (formats, support, fonts, and the like)
- get (La)TeX accepted by other communities: sgml, scientific societies
- provide user guides and templates
- education is paramount
- keep it simple and small is beautiful.
and so on.
Knuth secured a future for TeX by embedding it as formatter in his cweb literate
programming system. The formatting is a subtask for designing, creating and
maintaining quality software. By this he addressed the audience. Definitely not the
casual layman.
Prophecy
The demand on information technology will be that
|
people can access cost-effectively, and easily, from their homes the
information they need in a representation they wish. |
I envision that the following technologies will influence each other in realizing the
stated prophecy
- TeX's role? Embedded in a Hypertext approach?
- increased self-publishing
- Electronic Production & Consumption
- photography
- CD
- TV/Radio, video
- PC
- phone, fax, email
- holography
- . . .
- involvement of linguists and behaviorists
with the functionalities
- various inputs (o.a. voice, photography, . . . )
- diverse outputs (language, level, media and representation,. . . ).
Some years ago I day-dreamed about holographic-based true 3-D `displays,' as a
generalization of computer-assisted interactive TV. Science-fiction? Wait and see, or
better hang on and make it happen!
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