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Date:         Thu, 22 Feb 90 12:55:27 PST
Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.bitnet>
Sender: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.bitnet>
From: Leslie Lamport <lamport@SRC.DEC.COM>
Subject:      Re: \begin...\end interface
To: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.uucp>
In-Reply-To:  Your message of Thu,
              22 Feb 90 10:12:59 CET. <9002220927.AA18755@decpa.pa.dec.com>
Status: R
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X-UID: 21

From page 34 of the manual:

   To every declaration corresponds an environment whose name is the same
   as the declaration's name without the \.

Thus, \begin{tt} ... \end{tt} is equivalent to {\tt ... }.
There is no reason to change this--at least no reason compelling
enough to justify changing the user's view.

It's fine to define \begin{foo} to be

   IF \foo defined THEN \foo
                   ELSE \@$%*foo

This still would not permit the definition of \end..., since,
for example, \endtt, should not be definable.

However, I see no reason to bother with this.  If the user writes
\enumerate ... \endenumerate, he is not using a standard LaTeX
command and has no reason to expect mercy.  There are plenty of
nonLaTeX commands that he can type that are a lot more destructive
than that.

Leslie Lamport