[pstricks] When to use metapost...when to use pstricks
Jean-Côme Charpentier
Jean-Come.Charpentier at wanadoo.fr
Thu Jul 14 01:47:45 CEST 2005
Christopher Ellison wrote:
> I have a 'simple' question. Pstricks is nice because I can have the
> source for my figures directly in the source of my document
It's also possible with metapost.
> ...it is also
> very nice because of the all powerful packages and tools that come with
> pstricks.
Indeed. The number of pstricks packages is *much* greater than the
number of metapost packages.
> I have also seen metapost. Is there any reason why I should
> use metapost over pstricks?
Nobody force you to use metapost :-)
> Are there tasks that are easier to do with
> metapost than with pstricks?
There is the node of the problem. In fact, one can find examples more
easy with metapost than with pstricks... and vice versa.
Examples (for metapost):
x = a + b;
x = a - b;
metapost now knows that x = 2a and b = 0. Easy, isn't it ? More
generaly, metapost works easily with anything in the affin geometry (n
equations with m variables, affin transformation, ...)
z2 = 2/3[z0,z1];
makes the point z2 2/3 on the way z0 to z1.
pickup pencircle scaled .1in yscaled .1 rotated 45;
produces lines as they would be draw with a real rectangular pen .1in
width, 0.01in thick, rotated 45... like a calligraphic pen.
Examples (for pstricks):
\psline[linecolor=red]{|->}(1,2)(3,4)
Not difficult with metapost but so easy with pstricks
\scalebox{2 1}{\Large \bfseries Foo}
More easy with pstricks. Especially when the user decide to change
\documentclass{article}
with
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
(With metapost he has to change the metapost file prambule.)
\pstree[nodesepB=3p]{\Tcircle{X}}{%
\TR{\tilde{\tilde{X}}}
\TR{x}
\TR{y}
}
(example in pstricks documentation).
In fact, this last example is not easy to obtain with metapost nor
pstricks. But it illustrates the good point for pstricks: number of
packages (here pst-tree).
> If so, could you provide a couple of
> examples? I guess I was looking for a brief "comparison" of these
> approaches...and yes, I do understand that the opinion will be biased in
> favor of pstricks (but I am okay with that...and I lean that way anyway).
I'm not sure that examples are the right way to see difference between
Metapost and pstricks. I like both Metapost and Pstricks but
programming styles are absolutely differents.
Jean-Côme Charpentier
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