[OS X TeX] pushdown automata?

[Alain Schremmer]

On Jan 20, 2009, at 11:06 PM, Christopher Menzel wrote:

> On Jan 19, 2009, at 8:02 AM, Art Werschulz wrote:
>> Hi.
>>
>> On Jan 19, 2009, at 6:49 AM, Alain Schremmer wrote:
>>
>>> And the winner is?
>>
>> I decided to go with the TiKZ solution.
>> (1) It's easier for me to understand.
>> (2) The rest of my diagrams are also in TiKZ.
>> Thanks to all of you for your help and suggestions.
>
> Just curious:  Why not draw exactly the diagram you want in, say,  
> OmniGraffle, save it as a PDF (or whatever) and call it with  
> \includegraphics?  I composed the OmniGraffle version of the  
> graphic in question below in about two minutes (complete with  
> groovy shadow effect eye candy :-).  Is there any reason (over and  
> above the obvious advantage of cost) to write code when there are  
> such easy-to-use drawing programs available?

The cost is with the maintenance. Say that for whatever reason, you  
needed to change throughout your book State Control by, say,  
Democratic Control. If the graphics are in the form of code, one  
would hope that a search and replace should do. With included pdf's,  
you have to go back to the original graphics—which already implies  
that you kept them, make the change, re-save copies as cropped pdf.  
So, if you have, say, a couple of hundred included pdf's with "State  
Control" in them, that is a lot of work just to change one word.

Still, not having found the time to learn TikZ, the above is exactly  
what I do with Intaglio whose Save A Copy As, by the way, remembers  
in which folder to put the cropped pdf copies. So, at least, Intaglio  
give me automatically two folders, one for the Intaglio graphics for  
eventual editing and one for the pdf copies for inclusion in the  
LaTeX file.

In fact, though, I have a third folder in which I have the Intaglio  
graphics files saved by Intaglio as SVG.

The reason is that Moore—of recent "just a few lines of Xy-pic  
coding" fame—once explained on this list how these files saved as SVG  
code could then be inserted in the LaTeX file. What then happens is  
that when compiling, LaTeX creates the pdf from the SVG code which it  
then includegraphics in the LaTeX file.

And when you want to edit, you give the SVG code in the LaTeX to  
Intaglio which re-creates an Intaglio graphic file which you can edit  
graphically and which you then let Intaglio re-save as SVG. In  
essence, then, it works like TikZ but with the advantage of easy-to- 
use graphic editing and of not having to store graphic files.

If you knew what you were doing, you could even edit the SVG code  
directly in, say, SubEthaEdit. As for a search and replace with SVG  
code inserted in LaTeX, I never tried but I can't see why it wouldn't  
work.

Regards
--schremmer