Re: Create PDFs
Tom Duerbusch wrote: So, I was wonderingin the 21st century, there must be a better way. I'm thinking something that would take a base report, insert code into it and print it. Take all that crap out of the application program. I'm not tied to a PDF format. The bad part about PDF output is you need a print server to print the output. ...and Thomas Denier replied: The groff text formatter is free, and included in many Linux distributions. The formatter is built around a macro processor, and the exact input syntax depends on the choice of macro package. The macro package I am most familiar with uses a line starting with '.P' to indicate a paragraph break and a line starting with '.H' to indicate a heading. If your application program was re-written to produce groff input, the reports would still contain formatting information, but this information would be stated in terms of document structure rather than printer internals. This is a good suggestion, but I really don't think any ?roff-based language qualifies as 21st century. After all, roff pre-dates the Internet. :-) If you're going to rewrite the filter that converts your raw CICS output to a printable form, I'd suggest marking it up with XML tags. XML is going to be well-supported into the 21st century, and IMHO it gives you a lot more flexibility than roff. I've used both for many years, and much prefer XML. I'm going to get on my soapbox for a bit about this, and give you an earfull about document management. rant subject=Document Management level=abstract The key to having any flexibility with your documents is to separate the markup from the presentation, and the best way to do that is to use semantic markup. That's markup that expresses the meaning of the text, which is different from the structure or the representation. As an example, representational markup might use two line-breaks to indicate a paragraph, and structured markup would indicate the paragraph boundaries. But semantic markup would describe the purpose of some text: a step within a procedure or information about online devices, for example. The value of doing that is that by encoding information about the purpose of text, programs at various stages in the document preparation chain can make decisions on how to structure and represent them for you. Also, you've made a multi-purpose document that can be easily re-used, and targeted for different audiences or media. But why go to all that trouble? Well, it's not much trouble, you have to mark it up somehow if you want anything other than mono-font text, perhaps word-wrapped. You might as well do it in as general a way as possible, to give you the most flexibility so you don't have to come back and re-visit this again. /rant As a practical matter, though, which approach you take depends on your experience with markup languages. Roff is good if you know it, but as someone who's been using it for a few decades I wouldn't recommend it. It is too easy to slip back into writing representational markup, which then restricts what you can do with it. I'm suggesting XML because it is scalable: you can start by implementing some simple markup now, and other folks can add more semantics later on if they need it. But doing this does not require changing the entire document prep software chain, it usually only requires extensions to XML stylesheets. Of course, even if you do mark it up in roff, you can always run it through a roff - DocBook XML filter at some point if you need to. If you do use XML, you can convert your document into just about any format. The XML packages on Linux supply conversions to PDF, PostScript, HTML, RTF, and probably roff and others. BTW: your printer probably wants PostScript, and CUPS is set up to generate that from all sorts of input formats. I'd recommend rewriting your markup insertion program to put in some subset of DocBook XML to replace the PCL, then use something like OpenJADE to produce the PDF or PostScript from it. Better yet, produce HTML, put that on a web server and save some paper. :-) All this may be overkill for what you really need to do, but I'm not sure what your goals or limitations are here. It sounds like learning either roff or XML will involve a learning curve for you, so we should figure out which one is shorter. Contact me off-list if you want, I'll be glad to help you learn this stuff. - MacK. - Edmund R. MacKenty Software Architect Rocket Software, Inc. Newton, MA USA -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
-Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Edmund R. MacKenty Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:59 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs snip If you're going to rewrite the filter that converts your raw CICS output to a printable form, I'd suggest marking it up with XML tags. XML is going to be well-supported into the 21st century, and IMHO it gives you a lot more flexibility than roff. I've used both for many years, and much prefer XML. I'm going to get on my soapbox for a bit about this, and give you an earfull about document management. snip - MacK. - Edmund R. MacKenty Another plus to XML is that on z/OS, the XML processing can be offloaded from a general CP to a zIIP in the latest release of z/OS. This makes XML more fiscally attractive than it has been in the past. Also, under CICS, you could use write your code in Java (good built in XML stuff) and offload the Java processing to a zAAP. Again, more fiscally attractive than running it on a general CP. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
-Tom Duerbusch wrote: - I've asked before but now I know more about what I'm talking about (if you can believe that G). We are at a conversion point. Our CICS print output was being coded to a hardware box (IDATA box). And those are going away. The new printers that are wanted, are IP printers and the IDATA box was used with coax attached printers. Apparently, we manually designed printout using PCL code. That is, after sending down a setup string, the program would also send orders like: 1. Print this string using this font. 2. Make the next letter 20 point. 3. Go back to normal pitch and print the next few lines. 4. Change to red, change the font, change the pitch and print the amount. 5. etc. Counting thru this sample program, there are 50+ changes in output, based on the number of times we output PCL code. So, I was wonderingin the 21st century, there must be a better way. I'm thinking something that would take a base report, insert code into it and print it. Take all that crap out of the application program. I'm not tied to a PDF format. The bad part about PDF output is you need a print server to print the output. The groff text formatter is free, and included in many Linux distributions. The formatter is built around a macro processor, and the exact input syntax depends on the choice of macro package. The macro package I am most familiar with uses a line starting with '.P' to indicate a paragraph break and a line starting with '.H' to indicate a heading. If your application program was re-written to produce groff input, the reports would still contain formatting information, but this information would be stated in terms of document structure rather than printer internals. The groff formatter is packaged with device drivers for a number of different output data streams, including PostScript and PCL. It will not produce PDF directly, but there are open source utilities available to convert PostScript output to PDF. The new printers don't seem to be pdf printers that can handle PDF internally, and if I can keep from having to buy print servers, so much the better. But then, I could see a Windows box being a development box, that, using the GUI, can make forms design much easier to do and then have the resulting output loaded on a print server. A zLinux solution would be the easiest. Even of the product cost something, I could do a proof of concept during the free trial period. Perhaps even use Linux to print the PDF files. I expect the load to be about 2,000 pages a day, a page at a time across a coupledozen printers. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
-Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Evans, Kevin R Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 5:53 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs I remember EEs at a prior company using Forth years ago. They used to extend the language set by adding their own instructions. Then they couldn't remember how their own instruction worked (these were EEs doing this stuff not software guys./me waits for the verbal abuse to come in), so rewrote it for other code later on. Seemed very powerful but didn't see much use (at least at that company). I'm not surprised it didn't really go anywhere. Not go anywhere? It was not designed as a general purpose language. IIRC, the creator created it to control telescopes. I think it has a larger audience in the embedded or process control world. I've used it, just for learning purposes, and found it very interesting. I even created a forth-like intepreter that ran on MVS TSO. Do a Google search on forth and you'll get a lot of hits. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
I believe that Jack Woehr also wrote a forth interpreter for VM/CMS sometime ago. McKown, John wrote: -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Evans, Kevin R Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 5:53 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs I remember EEs at a prior company using Forth years ago. They used to extend the language set by adding their own instructions. Then they couldn't remember how their own instruction worked (these were EEs doing this stuff not software guys./me waits for the verbal abuse to come in), so rewrote it for other code later on. Seemed very powerful but didn't see much use (at least at that company). I'm not surprised it didn't really go anywhere. Not go anywhere? It was not designed as a general purpose language. IIRC, the creator created it to control telescopes. I think it has a larger audience in the embedded or process control world. I've used it, just for learning purposes, and found it very interesting. I even created a forth-like intepreter that ran on MVS TSO. Do a Google search on forth and you'll get a lot of hits. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology -- DJ V/Soft -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
It was on embedded systems that I was talking about. I only meant that it never went mainstream. Kevin -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of McKown, John Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 8:47 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Evans, Kevin R Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 5:53 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs I remember EEs at a prior company using Forth years ago. They used to extend the language set by adding their own instructions. Then they couldn't remember how their own instruction worked (these were EEs doing this stuff not software guys./me waits for the verbal abuse to come in), so rewrote it for other code later on. Seemed very powerful but didn't see much use (at least at that company). I'm not surprised it didn't really go anywhere. Not go anywhere? It was not designed as a general purpose language. IIRC, the creator created it to control telescopes. I think it has a larger audience in the embedded or process control world. I've used it, just for learning purposes, and found it very interesting. I even created a forth-like intepreter that ran on MVS TSO. Do a Google search on forth and you'll get a lot of hits. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 08:07:26AM -0500, Dave Jones wrote: McKown, John wrote: Not go anywhere? It was not designed as a general purpose language. IIRC, the creator created it to control telescopes. I think it has a larger audience in the embedded or process control world. Very much so. My roommate spent 10 years doing it for a living for the world's second largest manufacturer of electronic scales. (He got laid off, and hasn't been able to find anyone else to work for, though; the embedded space has almost entirely gone to C, and he doesn't ahve any C experience he can put on his resume.) I believe that Jack Woehr also wrote a forth interpreter for VM/CMS sometime ago. Dunno if it's his or not, but I've got a Forth for CMS tucked away somewhere. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!) Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
I worked in the embedded field for about 20+ years and never used it myself. No self respecting software developer would use it (at least for the military stuff that I worked on). As far as I saw, the code was almost impossible to maintain. Kevin -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jay Maynard Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 9:26 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 08:07:26AM -0500, Dave Jones wrote: McKown, John wrote: Not go anywhere? It was not designed as a general purpose language. IIRC, the creator created it to control telescopes. I think it has a larger audience in the embedded or process control world. Very much so. My roommate spent 10 years doing it for a living for the world's second largest manufacturer of electronic scales. (He got laid off, and hasn't been able to find anyone else to work for, though; the embedded space has almost entirely gone to C, and he doesn't ahve any C experience he can put on his resume.) I believe that Jack Woehr also wrote a forth interpreter for VM/CMS sometime ago. Dunno if it's his or not, but I've got a Forth for CMS tucked away somewhere. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!) Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 09:33:50AM -0400, Evans, Kevin R wrote: I worked in the embedded field for about 20+ years and never used it myself. No self respecting software developer would use it (at least for the military stuff that I worked on). As far as I saw, the code was almost impossible to maintain. My roommate's reply: If you write it [Forth] to be maintainable, it'll be maintainable. If you write it to look like Perl, you'll get an unmaintainable mess. It's an amplifier: it amplifies mistakes really, really well. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!) Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
I guess to each their own, no? Kevin -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jay Maynard Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 9:45 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 09:33:50AM -0400, Evans, Kevin R wrote: I worked in the embedded field for about 20+ years and never used it myself. No self respecting software developer would use it (at least for the military stuff that I worked on). As far as I saw, the code was almost impossible to maintain. My roommate's reply: If you write it [Forth] to be maintainable, it'll be maintainable. If you write it to look like Perl, you'll get an unmaintainable mess. It's an amplifier: it amplifies mistakes really, really well. -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!) Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
On Sep 25, 2007, at 5:52 AM, Evans, Kevin R wrote: I remember EEs at a prior company using Forth years ago. They used to extend the language set by adding their own instructions. Then they couldn't remember how their own instruction worked (these were EEs doing this stuff not software guys./me waits for the verbal abuse to come in), so rewrote it for other code later on. Seemed very powerful but didn't see much use (at least at that company). I'm not surprised it didn't really go anywhere. Nothing except maybe Lisp rivals Forth in terms of expressive-power- per-byte-of-language. But then a stack is just a bunch of parens turned on its side. It flourished in embedded environments where you had very tight constraints to work within. The other two places you saw things like Forth were the HP calculators' RPN (on those models featuring a full programming language, like the 28S and the 48) and PostScript (which is a small stack-based language, but not really Forth). Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
OT : Language comparisons (was Re: Create PDFs)
Adam Thornton wrote: Nothing except maybe Lisp rivals Forth in terms of expressive-power- per-byte-of-language. But then a stack is just a bunch of parens turned on its side. I'd put APL first in that category ! --Ivan -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: OT : Language comparisons (was Re: Create PDFs)
-Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ivan Warren Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 9:09 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: OT : Language comparisons (was Re: Create PDFs) Adam Thornton wrote: Nothing except maybe Lisp rivals Forth in terms of expressive-power- per-byte-of-language. But then a stack is just a bunch of parens turned on its side. I'd put APL first in that category ! --Ivan I love APL. And found its vector oriented mindset very helpful for when I was learning SQL. It also needs a set oriented mindset so that you don't do the legacy record at a time thinking. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: OT : Language comparisons (was Re: Create PDFs)
On Tue, Sep 25, 2007 at 04:09:08PM +0200, Ivan Warren wrote: Adam Thornton wrote: Nothing except maybe Lisp rivals Forth in terms of expressive-power- per-byte-of-language. But then a stack is just a bunch of parens turned on its side. I'd put APL first in that category ! Three things a man must do before his life is done, Write two lines in APL and make the buggers run. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, _The Devil's DP Dictionary_ -- Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net http://www.hercules-390.org (Yes, that's me!) Buy Hercules stuff at http://www.cafepress.com/hercules-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: OT : Language comparisons (was Re: Create PDFs)
On Sep 25, 2007, at 9:09 AM, Ivan Warren wrote: Adam Thornton wrote: Nothing except maybe Lisp rivals Forth in terms of expressive-power- per-byte-of-language. But then a stack is just a bunch of parens turned on its side. I'd put APL first in that category ! I think I was unclear. What I meant was not per-byte-of-program but per-byte-of-compiler- or-interpreter. That is, it's relatively easy to create a very, very small Forth interpreter--suitable for running in a tiny environment--which nevertheless is a very powerful language. Now, don't try this trick with Common Lisp, but some early Lisps and some dialects are quite suitable for implementation in not-much-room- at-all. Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
If you write it to look like Perl, you'll get an unmaintainable mess. It's an amplifier: it amplifies mistakes really, really well. It's the old saw that says that it's possible to write FORTRAN in any programming language if you try hard enough. Forth is very, very useful, particularly if you need specialized application grammars. It's tiny, and light-weight, and easily embedded. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
Hello! Right you are John. I even believe I've got the article from Byte Magazine describing it that way preserved someplace as a cutting. I even remember studying the way it worked on another machine that I supported. Now I just work with ideas for Postscript. Which happens to be a full language despite being a page description language. -- Gregg C Levine [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Force will be with you. Always. Obi-Wan Kenobi -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of McKown, John Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 8:47 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: [LINUX-390] Create PDFs -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Evans, Kevin R Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 5:53 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs I remember EEs at a prior company using Forth years ago. They used to extend the language set by adding their own instructions. Then they couldn't remember how their own instruction worked (these were EEs doing this stuff not software guys./me waits for the verbal abuse to come in), so rewrote it for other code later on. Seemed very powerful but didn't see much use (at least at that company). I'm not surprised it didn't really go anywhere. Not go anywhere? It was not designed as a general purpose language. IIRC, the creator created it to control telescopes. I think it has a larger audience in the embedded or process control world. I've used it, just for learning purposes, and found it very interesting. I even created a forth-like intepreter that ran on MVS TSO. Do a Google search on forth and you'll get a lot of hits. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
-Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gregg C Levine Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 9:42 AM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: Re: Create PDFs Hello! Right you are John. I even believe I've got the article from Byte Magazine describing it that way preserved someplace as a cutting. I even remember studying the way it worked on another machine that I supported. Now I just work with ideas for Postscript. Which happens to be a full language despite being a page description language. -- Gregg C Levine [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Force will be with you. Always. Obi-Wan Kenobi Very true. When I was looking heavily at PS (for learning), I had seen a number of PS programs which actually created graphic images using the PS language. The images were actually generated (very slowly) in the printer. Circles, spirals, and the like. Very interesting. And NextStep used a version (Display Postscript) for its GUI operations. -- John McKown Senior Systems Programmer HealthMarkets Keeping the Promise of Affordable Coverage Administrative Services Group Information Technology The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged and/or confidential. It is for intended addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other use of this communication is strictly prohibited and could, in certain circumstances, be a criminal offense. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by reply and delete this message without copying or disclosing it. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
Forth was the language of Sun's Open Boot PROM. From http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-10-1995/swol-10-openboot.html: When you turn on a Sun workstation, the firmware in the boot PROM (programmable read-only memory) is executed immediately. The main function of a boot PROM is to load a standalone program to the core memory and start its execution. Standalone programs can be operating systems, diagnostic software, and others. The firmware in Sun's boot PROM is called OpenBoot. Other than initial program loading and invocation, OpenBoot provides debugging features to assist kernel debugging and board bring-up. In fact, Sun sponsored the IEEE Forth standard. Here's Sun's OpenBoot Command Reference manual: http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/802-3241. The GNU implementation of forth is available at least in Fedora 7 as yum install gforth. Etc etc. Richard Hitt [EMAIL PROTECTED] Adam Thornton wrote: On Sep 25, 2007, at 5:52 AM, Evans, Kevin R wrote: I remember EEs at a prior company using Forth years ago. They used to extend the language set by adding their own instructions. Then they couldn't remember how their own instruction worked (these were EEs doing this stuff not software guys./me waits for the verbal abuse to come in), so rewrote it for other code later on. Seemed very powerful but didn't see much use (at least at that company). I'm not surprised it didn't really go anywhere. Nothing except maybe Lisp rivals Forth in terms of expressive-power- per-byte-of-language. But then a stack is just a bunch of parens turned on its side. It flourished in embedded environments where you had very tight constraints to work within. The other two places you saw things like Forth were the HP calculators' RPN (on those models featuring a full programming language, like the 28S and the 48) and PostScript (which is a small stack-based language, but not really Forth). Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
Adam Thornton wrote: On Sep 25, 2007, at 5:52 AM, Evans, Kevin R wrote: I remember EEs at a prior company using Forth years ago. They used to extend the language set by adding their own instructions. Then they couldn't remember how their own instruction worked (these were EEs doing this stuff not software guys./me waits for the verbal abuse to come in), so rewrote it for other code later on. Seemed very powerful but didn't see much use (at least at that company). I'm not surprised it didn't really go anywhere. Nothing except maybe Lisp rivals Forth in terms of expressive-power- per-byte-of-language. But then a stack is just a bunch of parens turned on its side. It flourished in embedded environments where you had very tight constraints to work within. The other two places you saw things like Forth were the HP calculators' RPN (on those models featuring a full programming language, like the 28S and the 48) and PostScript (which is a small stack-based language, but not really Forth). I've never seen or used Forth, but allegedly the slushware in Apples and Suns is pretty similar. http://www.openfirmware.org/ -- Cheers John -- spambait [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please do not reply off-list -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
John Summerfield wrote: I've never seen or used Forth, but allegedly the slushware in Apples and Suns is pretty similar. http://www.openfirmware.org/ I may have meant openboot.org - but it's not loading, so I can't be certain. -- Cheers John -- spambait [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please do not reply off-list -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Create PDFs
I've asked before but now I know more about what I'm talking about (if you can believe that G). We are at a conversion point. Our CICS print output was being coded to a hardware box (IDATA box). And those are going away. The new printers that are wanted, are IP printers and the IDATA box was used with coax attached printers. Apparently, we manually designed printout using PCL code. That is, after sending down a setup string, the program would also send orders like: 1. Print this string using this font. 2. Make the next letter 20 point. 3. Go back to normal pitch and print the next few lines. 4. Change to red, change the font, change the pitch and print the amount. 5. etc. Counting thru this sample program, there are 50+ changes in output, based on the number of times we output PCL code. So, I was wonderingin the 21st century, there must be a better way. I'm thinking something that would take a base report, insert code into it and print it. Take all that crap out of the application program. I'm not tied to a PDF format. The bad part about PDF output is you need a print server to print the output. The new printers don't seem to be pdf printers that can handle PDF internally, and if I can keep from having to buy print servers, so much the better. But then, I could see a Windows box being a development box, that, using the GUI, can make forms design much easier to do and then have the resulting output loaded on a print server. A zLinux solution would be the easiest. Even of the product cost something, I could do a proof of concept during the free trial period. Perhaps even use Linux to print the PDF files. I expect the load to be about 2,000 pages a day, a page at a time across a couple dozen printers. Thanks Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting FELINE PHYSICS: Law of Cat Motion A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
Tom ... I'm curious why you would pursue a PDF capable printer instead of cranking out PostScript from CICS, or generating PostScript. It's easy to do. PostScript is a 4th-like language (where, for those unfamiliar with it, there was once a language called 4th and PS is like it). I never learned 4th, but was blessed with a PostScript based workstation once upon a time. Good stuff! The nasty part about PostScript is that you have to have a PS interpreter. But if that is built-in to the printer, then you're in business and ready to run. I cannot objectively compare PS to PCL. Perhaps others can. The high point about PS from my perspective is that it is plain text. (That is, version 1 was entirely plain printable characters, though version 2 and up allows binary stuff, but does not to my knowledge require it.) -- R; -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
So, I was wonderingin the 21st century, there must be a better way. I'm thinking something that would take a base report, insert code into it and print it. Take all that crap out of the application program. I'm not tied to a PDF format. The bad part about PDF output is you need a print server to print the output. The new printers don't seem to be pdf printers that can handle PDF internally, and if I can keep from having to buy print servers, so much the better. Use CUPS and RSCS. The combination of the two has a vast majority of the features you describe already in the box, and you could compile the CUPS API library for your other applications, which would give you the ability to specify this sort of stuff independent of the actual print command language. A zLinux solution would be the easiest. Even of the product cost something, I could do a proof of concept during the free trial period. Perhaps even use Linux to print the PDF files. I expect the load to be about 2,000 pages a day, a page at a time across a couple dozen printers. Easy, and CUPS is probably already on your Linux distribution. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Create PDFs
On Sep 24, 2007, at 5:40 PM, Rick Troth wrote: PostScript is a 4th-like language (where, for those unfamiliar with it, there was once a language called 4th and PS is like it). Forth. Pedantically yrs, Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
