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diff --git a/doc/design/s1_0 b/doc/design/s1_0 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca487ba --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/design/s1_0 @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +@Section + @Title { Introduction } +@Begin +@PP +Lout [1, 2] is a high-level language +for document formatting, designed and implemented by the author. The +implementation, known as Basser Lout, is a fully operational production +version written in C for the Unix operating system, +@FootNote { Unix is a trademark of "AT&T" Bell Laboratories. } +which translates Lout source code into PostScript, +@FootNote { PostScript is a trademark of Adobe Systems, Incorporated. } +a device-independent graphics rendering language accepted by many +high-resolution output devices, including most laser printers. Basser +Lout is available free of charge [3]. It includes +installation instructions, C source, seven standard packages, and complete +documentation in the form of six technical reports and a manual page. +@PP +The Lout project arose out of the author's desire to bring to document +formatting languages the elegance of expression found in programming +languages like Algol-60 and Pascal. This emphasis on expressiveness +has produced an order of magnitude reduction in the cost of developing +document formatting applications. For example, an equation formatting +application, which may be difficult or impossible to add to other +systems, can be written in Lout in a few days. +@PP +When expert users can implement such applications quickly, non-experts +benefit. Although Lout itself provides only a small kernel of carefully +chosen primitives, packages written in Lout and distributed with Basser +Lout provide an unprecedented array of advanced features in a form +accessible to non-expert users. The features include rotation and scaling, +fonts, paragraph and page breaking, displays and lists, floating figures +and tables, footnotes, chapters and sections (automatically numbered), +running page headers and footers, odd-even page layouts, automatically +generated tables of contents, sorted indexes and reference lists, +bibliographic and other databases (including databases of formats for +printing references), equations, tables, diagrams, formatting of +Pascal programs, and automatically maintained cross references. +@PP +This paper charts the evolution of Lout from conception in mid-1984 to the +public release of Basser Lout in October 1991. Lout is organized around +four key concepts -- objects, definitions, galleys, and cross references -- +and they were developed in the order listed, so this paper will treat each +in turn, discussing its design, implementation, problems, and +prospects for further improvement. +@End @Section |