My favorite PostScript program I wrote calculated the Mandelbrot set on the printer which would give me a reason to knock on the door at the computer center and ask was what taking my printout so long.
I'm still sad that when Apple bought NeXT we didn't get Display PostScript --- it was so nice being able to for example program a custom line stroke in Altsys Virtuoso to display the length of the line and see it on-screen --- doing that in Mac OS (or Windows) required writing out a .eps or .ps file and then distilling to a PDF using Acrobat.
I really wish that there was a graphical programming/drawing program which would allow one to seamlessly switch between programming .ps (or other --- METAFONT would be way cool for this) code and selecting and moving the nodes/objects which would then cause the code to update.
I'll never get my head around the fact that a language that started life as a way to accurately draw things on a printer and on a screen, is capable of being used for full-fledged applications such as this - although I suppose it makes sense, its still just too weird to me.
What's next? A full-blown desktop OS in Postscript, which is also the User Manual?
SimCity, Cellular Automata, and Happy Tool for HyperLook (nee HyperNeWS (nee GoodNeWS))
HyperLook was like HyperCard for NeWS, with PostScript graphics and scripting plus networking. Here are three unique and wacky examples that plug together to show what HyperNeWS was all about, and where we could go in the future!
Hi Don, have you ever been tempted to reimplement the Hyperlook system in the browser (similar to the revival of the old Smalltalk systems pre Smalltalk-80)?
My brain involuntarily assembled these letters into PTSD.
If there is a single programming language that rewired my the brain, it's PostScript. I used that a bit two decades ago when I wanted to programmatically generate a variant of Fresnel zone plates.
Is it really that bad, or is it just different from the typical OOP? At a glance to me it looks like any old stack oriented language... Why does Forth get hailed as an experience of spiritual enlightenment, yet PS always gets dunked on?
The language is quite elegant and has some really good concepts, but it lacks many of the things that make programming an enjoyable activity for serious work in the modern day. While the language is incredibly dynamic, it works like a low-level language for everything but displaying 2D vector graphics (where it is actually good). If you want to concatenate two strings, you'll have to implement that function.
IMHO, the real problem with PostScript is that the language has not evolved at all for like 25 years. That's a lot of time during which it could have transformed into something truly spectacular.
