[scribus] Is Scribus of No Practical Use to Engineers, Scientists and Mathematicians?

[Jeffrey Silverman]

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 10:06 AM, Professor Rodney
Coates<rcoates at seiche.com> wrote:
> Dear Owen,
>
> I have been able to download and install Ghostscript, so an initial
> Ghostscript error message on starting Scribus now no longer appears. I do
> not know if Ghostcript has some part to play in Tex utilisation.
>
> I have downloaded BasicTex for Mac and installed that also. However, when I
> click the Tex icon on the menubar, all I get is a message
>
> The item "pdflatex -- interactive nonstopmode failed to start"
>
> This is one of those error messages which really ought to bring scorn and
> derision on the programmer who implemented it. There is no point in
> providing meaningless error messages when the software is intended or
> presumed to have a wide and general use.
>
> Error messages ought to convey some meaningful instruction which can be
> acted on to the benefit of the user.
<Snip!>

Not sure why you are addressing these specific questions to the
Scribus mailing list. There are, very likely, LaTeX and Ghostscript
mailing list equivalents. I recommend trying over there. Not because
folks here don't want to help you, but because you are more likely to
get specific and detailed answers if you ask the people involved in
using and creating those tools.

I also sense a lack of general understanding about how open source
software "works". First and foremost, it does not work the same way as
commercial packages, such as Photoshop or Illustrator. And I don't
mean "work" in the sense of how one uses the things. I mean, support,
documentation, implementation, installtion -- the infrastructure,
ecosystem, and expectations around open source are different than that
of comeercially purchased software. Not better, not worse, just
different. And it can take some getting used to!

Maybe my assessments are incorrect, but your comments demonstrate
common frustrations expressed with anyone used to using commercial
software trying to transistion to general use of open source software.
Whether that be office suites, creative workflow (i.e. publishing and
graphics), or operating systems.

Alrighty, seeyalater...


-- 
JDS