X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil t nil] [nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil]) Date: Wed, 21 Feb 90 11:32:43 MET Reply-To: Victor Eijkhout Sender: LaTeX-L Mailing list From: Victor Eijkhout Subject: Catcodes hacks in headings/footnotes To: Rainer Schoepf Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 11 Don Hosek wrote: >I suspect the difference between the LaTeX \footnote and plain >TeX \footnote with respect to catcode difficulties is a >conscious one. There's one on the list to enlighten us. I'm very curious if the decision was indeed conscious. And if so, on what grounds. >As noted previously, it is possible to avoid these >problems, but only with great difficulty. Difficult? No, not really. I indicated how section headings can be done, and for footnotes you can incorporate the Plain macros. >Now supposing that we >arrange things so that every LaTeX built-in command can accept >\verb and Levy's Greek in its arguments. What then do we say to >the user when he asks why \mycommand{\verb+\Foo+} doesn't work? Now this is a strange justification for not doing it! Suppose you tell the user: 'you can use \verb anywhere, in plain text as well as headings, but not in anything you make yourself, e.g. \newcommand and \newenvironment'. That's a consistent view, isn't it? (It's quite another matter if the user will be satisfied with this...) Frank and Rainer: about this replying bussiness. I had to go to some trouble to answer to the list to Don's remarks quoting them. Can't we have all replies go automatically to the list? This list will never be flamers heaven, so I don't think the precautions you took are needed. And it will make the discussions a lot easier. Now every contribution is one-shot only. Victor Eijkhout Department of Mathematics University of Nijmegen Toernooiveld 5 "Far out in the uncharted 6525 ED Nijmegen, the Netherlands backwaters of the unfash- ionable end of the +31 80 61 3169 western spiral arm (switchboard: 61 1111) of the galaxy" u641000@HNYKUN11.BITNET