Raw SVG

[selden]

(seriously though - any language with line length restrictions due to the size of punchcards should be dead and buried. Why oh why it still exists in physics is beyond me)

Because they haven't switched to fortran90 or later? Granted gfortran may not be all you want, but the commercial compilers are more than adequate. Still, there are enough differences in the languages that tracking down the resulting bugs is a royal pain in the fundament.

As for svg files, I can entirely see the OP's point. I've done a bit of editing eps files by hand too and it's surprisingly straighforward, though I haven't done the same with svg.

Well, postscript is just another stack-oriented reverse polish language. If you were comfortable with the original HP RPN calculators, it's easy to learn. Forth is equivalent fun.

And svg files look quite simple by comparison.