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Date:         Sat, 19 May 90 00:54:53 CET
Reply-To: LaTeX-L Mailing list <LATEX-L%DHDURZ1@unido.bitnet>
From: bbeeton <BNB@MATH.AMS.COM>
Subject:      re: book outline: LaTeX Styles for Classic Designs
To: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.uucp>
Status: R
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X-UID: 108

I found the description of the proposed book (forwarded by Leslie
Lamport to a mailing list of people interested in the future
development of LaTeX) very attractive, and eagerly await the book's
appearance.

I would like to request corrections to two rather serious errors of
fact, preferably before the outline or any other documents related
to the project get much wider circulation.

The first is in the representation of the names "TeX" and "LaTeX".
Idiosyncratic though it may seem, it is important that "TeX" be
presented with either a small "e" or a lowered "E".  The reason for
this is stated in Chapter 1 of The TeXbook:

    English words like `technology' stem from a Greek root beginning
    with the letters  tau epsilon chi ...; and this same Greek word
    means *art* as well as technology. Hence the name TeX, which is an
    uppercase form of  tau epsilon chi.

    ...

    ... , it's important to notice another thing about TeX's name:
    The `E' is out of kilter. This displaced `E' is a reminder that
    TeX is about typesetting, and it distinguishes TeX from other
    system names. In fact, TEX (pronounced *tecks*) is the admirable
    Text EXecutive processor developed by Honeywell Information Systems.
    Since these two system names are pronounced quite differently,
    they should also be spelled differently. The correct way to refer
    to TeX in a computer file, or when using some other medium that
    doesn't allow lowering of the `E', is to type `TeX'. Then there
    will be no confusion with similar names, and people will be
    primed to pronounce everything properly.

TEX and TeX are both trademarks; TEX is registered by Honeywell, whose
lawyers at one time threatened action to prevent the use of the name
TeX, but who were persuaded that Knuth's standing was sufficiently
important that they were mollified by the passage quoted above, and
a promise in good faith that every effort would be made to see that
the names are used in the form intended.

The second correction is to the two references to the TeX Users Group.
TUG is not associated in any organizational way with the American
Mathematical Society, though AMS did sponsor TUG's establishment and
employees of the AMS have been and continue to be members of the TUG
board and editor of its journal TUGboat, and AMS also performs certain
services for TUG as a business arrangement.  So the references to TUG
should omit any mention of AMS.  (If a reference to AMS is desired, for
any reason, it would be a true statement that nearly all AMS publications,
well over 10,000 pages per year, are produced with TeX, and that the AMS
has sponsored the creation of a macro package, AMS-TeX, to support the
preparation of mathematical research papers.)

I was a bit surprised that astronomers were omitted from the intended
audience, but assume that their critical mass is even smaller than
that of mathematicians, who could under no circumstances be omitted,
given the origin of TeX.

There are a few typos in the outline that I am sure have been found by
now, but if you would like a list, please let me know.

Finally, it would be interesting to see more detailed information about
the authors (their resumes were not attached to the electronic message).

                                        -- Barbara Beeton
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