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: Thu, 19 Apr 90 16:29:24 CET Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list From: Michael Downes Subject: enunciations To: Rainer Schoepf Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 82 Re Frank's last mail about enunciation environments: < I think it is very important that we find a syntax for things < like theorem envs or enunciation or whatever you call them which < is sufficent general to serve in a wide range of documents. < This is one of the reasons for this list. < It would be really bad if Michael is going to propose some syntax < for use with the amsart.sty and we, later on, propose a different < one. < One of my main goals is to specify document classes, I called them < meta styles in previous messages, and any incarnation of such < a class should define exactly the same commands with the same syntax. < This is the only way to achieve portability between document styles < in the same class. I therefore hope that Michael is not going to < implement things of this sort as long as there is no agreement. I agree with your concern, Frank, and had already spent some time worrying about it. It would be better if I avoid implementing anything in the distribution until a good syntax can be agreed on. But please bear in mind also that I am caught in the middle between the desire to avoid conflict with the eventual agreed syntax and pressure in the AMS to start publishing using amsart.sty. Already some LaTeX papers have been entered into the in-house production stream using a jury-rigged version of amsart.sty, against my advice. One possibility would be to have a preliminary version of the enunciation macros for in-house use only, and not distribute them in the first release of the AMS-LaTeX package. If you think about the implications you will realize why I would like to avoid this if possible: authors using the first release of amsart.sty will type theorems, lemmas, definitions, remarks, and everything else using the current \newtheorem or perhaps \newenvironment, and I and my co-workers will be stuck with the job of taking the authors' latex files and changing whatever is necessary to provide the typographic treatment of four different classes that our editorial department wants to have. And the upper management, not knowing a great deal about the inner workings of TeX, will ask `Why is it so hard to do such a simple thing?' We will also have to answer questions over the phone about what to do for something unusual like changing numbers or having a name such as `Symmetric Partition Theorem' instead of `Theorem 4.5'. This will continue for the following six months or a year or however long it takes to produce the next release of the AMS-LaTeX package. Ah, well ... it's not as if I haven't done this sort of thing before. Maybe it's time to buckle on the sense of humor and get ready to battle the hydra. < If the enunciation env. is implemented as a style option, i.e. usable < with, let's say the siam document style, too, it would be okay, but < his intention is, if I judge this correctly, to make it part of the < document style, and therefore implicit part of the document class. Perhaps doing it as a style option would be the best compromise for the near future, with the intention that the syntax would be superseded in the future by the syntax agreed on for LaTeX 3.0 (or 2.10?). I have a little more to say in reply to Frank's other remarks but it will take time to write so can be left until later. Michael -------