Re: what can PSTricks do that PGF/TikZ can't? (and vice versa)

> Hi!
>
>
> actually, that passage in the manual is rather old, TikZ can now do  
> most of the things that pstricks can. (Sometimes I would not even have  
> thought that we/I would be able to implement these things...).
>
> There is one thing where I think that pstricks will stay to be more  
> powerful than tikz: Graphics in which text is used as a path or the  
> base of a path. For instance, there are packages for creating "3D"  
> letters, which are generated by using a normal text, turning it into a  
> path, then doing some postscript magic to add "depth and lights". In  
> pdf one simply cannot access text paths (partly for technical reasons,  
> partly for copyright reasons), so I think it is more or less  
> impossible to create these 3D letters as it is done in pstricks.
>
> Currently, I also think that the commands for connecting nodes are  
> still more powerful in pstricks (although the syntax is not very  
> good). But we are working on this...
>
> In general, pstricks has the great advantage that a lot of  
> computational stuff can be left to the postscript interpreter, where  
> pgf has to do the necessary computations inside TeX. For instance, if  
> you use pstricks to plot a function, depending on the function,  
> pstricks can store just the code of the function in the postscript  
> file, which is very fast and simple. pgf, on the other hand, will have  
> to evaluate all points of the function while TeX goes over the tex-
> file. This takes a lot of time and results in longer files.
>
>
> The main strengths of pgf are portability, better syntax (with TikZ),  
> transparency, more powerful shapes/nodes. I also think that  
> decorations are a pretty neat thing, which pstricks lacks.
>
>
> According to user feedback, it seems to be an advantage that pstricks  
> has a short manual. A good book on TikZ would certainly help, here.
>
>
> Regards,
> Till
>
>
> Am 17.07.2008 um 10:12 schrieb Dan Drake:
>
>  
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm giving a presentation in August about graphics tools for LaTeX.
>> Naturally I need to mention PSTricks and TikZ. In several places [1],
>> the TikZ manual mentions that since PSTricks is based on Postscript,  
>> it
>> will always have capabilities that TikZ won't.
>>
>> I'm interested in some examples of things that are easy in PSTricks  
>> that
>> are impossible or very difficult in PGF/TikZ -- and vice versa. I'm  
>> not
>> trying to decide which system is "better", I just want to know some of
>> the differences between them, as well as the limitations and strengths
>> of each.
>>
>> Suggestions? Thanks!
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>> [1]: Particularly section 1.2 (page 17 of the current manual).
>>
>> --
>> ---  Dan Drake <drake@...>
>> -----  KAIST Department of Mathematical Sciences
>> -------  http://math.kaist.ac.kr/~drake
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>
> --
> Prof. Dr. Till Tantau <tantau@...>
> http://www.tcs.uni-luebeck.de
>
>
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