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:         Fri, 13 Jul 90 18:09:16 CET
From: Rainer Schoepf <BK4@DHDURZ1.bitnet>
Organization: Inst. f. Theor. Physik d. Univ. Heidelberg
Subject:      Message from Oren Patashnik, send by Nico -- resent
To: LaTeX discussion list <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.uucp>
Status: R
X-Status: 
X-Keywords:                  
X-UID: 180

[This message was not delivered for some reason, and I found it only
 today. -- Rainer]


[Nico---Thanks for the message.  I didn't send a copy to the other
address that appeared in the To: field of the message you sent me.
Feel free to forward my response to that (or any other) address.]

> In a previous message I wrote that I was curious about the opinion of
> the Chicago Manual of Style on the name-year or author-date system.
> Reading through the BibTeX documentation I found an answer:
>
>> The Chicago Manual of Style, on the other hand, espouse the
>> author-date system, in which the citation might appear in the text as
>> `(Jones, 1986)'.
>
> followed by Oren Patashnik's arguments against using such a system.
> He continues:
>
>> What a mess.
>> (I have, unfortunately, programmed such a style,
>> and if you're saddled with an unenlightened publisher
>> or if you don't buy my propaganda,
>> it's available from the Rochester style collection.)

You've omitted what I consider the main issue: that the Chicago
Manual's main reason for espousing their author-date system (ease of
use) is anachronistic, given current typesetting technology (like
LaTeX).

> On January 1, 1990 I started working for a publisher, so I'm now more
> or less familiar with both standpoints: that of the author (having
> studied and worked in the University of Utrecht for 11 years) and
> that of the publisher.
>
> What is so remarkable about the name-year discussion is this: our
> company doesn't force authors to use this system. It's precisely the
> other way around:
>
> - our authors force *us* to accept their TeX and LaTeX files (we're
>   working on that)
> - in the LaTeX case authors expect *us* to give them document styles
>   and bibliography styles for both the number system and the author-date
>   system.

I'm not claiming that publishers are the only culprit.  To a first
approximation, I think that journal editors and authors that have been
using author-date styles are so comfortable in their ways that they
are reluctant to change; both are responsible.  But let's face it,
"The Times They Are A Changin'", and both authors and journal editors
should be encouraged to adopt the improved (in my opinion) styles that
the new technology has made easy to use.

> Anyway: I think an author-date bibliography style should be part of
> the new LaTeX 3.0/BibTeX 1.0 package.

BibTeX 1.0 will still have the same four standard styles, one of which
(alpha) is an author-date style.  In addition, there will be an
updated version of apalike, another author-date style, in the
Clarkson style collection (and presumably others).

[By the way, do you know when LaTeX 3.0 is due to come out?]

	--Oren