X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil t nil]
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Date:         Fri, 23 Feb 90 12:38:02 CET
Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.bitnet>
Sender: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.bitnet>
From: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" <Beebe@SCIENCE.UTAH.EDU>
Subject:      Re: \begin...\end interface
To: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.uucp>
Status: R
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X-Keywords:                  
X-UID: 24

Leslie Lamport writes

>> Apparently, Beebe does not use LaTeX, since otherwise he
>> would know that LaTeX provides no way to unintentionally
>> redefine an existing command.

I am almost exclusively a LaTeX user, the author of major
package for LaTeX editing support under TOPS-20 and GNU
Emacs, and the newly-elected President of the TeX Users
Group.  As such, I am very concerned about future LaTeX
developments.

While it is true that if one sticks exclusively to LaTeX as
defined in your book, then, yes, \newcommand will catch
attempts to redefine any previously-defined macro.  In an
ideal world, all LaTeX users would either use LaTeX per the
book, or when they made extensions, did so in style files.
I try to follow those rules myself, but experience with
other users is that they often do not, and lapse into raw
TeX in-line.  As you have often remarked, then all bets are
off.

My concern in this posting was that it seemed worthwhile to
investigate the effects of the proposal of mapping
\begin{xxx} into a name containing an at-sign.
P. 86, l. -8 of the LaTeX book mentions in passing that
\begin{quote} and \end{quote} refer to \quote and
\endquote.  So far today, no one has discovered any other
place where this is noted.  However, that point was made in
the section on Customizing the Document Style in the
Designing it Yourself chapter, and it may be argued whether
the author meant that \begin{xxx} ALWAYS has \xxx associated
with it, or only when xxx is quote.

My feeling is that this mapping need not be guaranteed in
the future; the question being discussed today is whether
such a change would violate the strong desire to retain
compatibility with the book as LaTeX evolves; that is,
should we view user files that employ \quote, \endquote, et
al, outside of style files as conforming to LaTeX (and
therefore to not being invalidated by any changes), or
deviating from it (in which case the change could be made).

Perhaps Leslie Lamport, as the original designer, would care
to comment.
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