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Comment by newt0311 | Hacker News Reader

A more pressing problem with SVG is that it is like every other W3C standard: bloated, unwieldy, and obfuscated. Not to mention that SVG does not have all the capabilities of PS. PS is a complete turing complete language specialized for drawing vector graphics. SVG is more restricted and certainly slower to work with, not as well supported, and very very verbose.

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Yes, that's true. Did you know SVG 1.2 has sockets? http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-SVG12-20041027/api.html#socket

> [...] and very very verbose

it's possible to write compact SVG. For example, it has a simple and very compact sub-language for specifying paths (with one-letter commands): http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/paths.html#PathDataBNF

What do you mean by 'not as well supported'? SVG is supported by Firefox, Opera and Webkit (Safari / Chrome). I'm not aware of any Browser that supports Postscript.

As for turing complete: SVG is fully scriptable with Javascript, which is turing complete and built-in in every browser.

I've tried using it, and at some points it starts to break down. For example, if I want to change just one point on a path, I have to parse through the entire string instead of just setting a property to a value.

Some parts of SVG are supported by those browsers; other parts aren't. Generally the implementations are pretty slow and, last I checked, unstable too.

Every linux box in existence supports PS, very well. So does every PDF reader. That covers over 80% of all computers. Extending this support could be done through a plugin. Compare this to the fact that IE does not support SVG and PS is a far better standard to work with in terms of vector drawing.

As to the turing completeness of SVG, how efficiently can JS transform vectors in comparison to PS. Not very fast.

Also, nobody wants to draw just paths.

"So does every PDF reader."

I don't think every PDF reader supports PostScript very well. Is that what you meant to say?

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