X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1832" "Sat" "22" "August" "92" "22:05:38" "CET" "Frank Mittelbach" "MITTELBACH@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE" nil "38" "kernel viz styles" "^Date:" nil nil "8"]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (serv01) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/6.5.92 ) id AA10238; Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:09:50 +0200 Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de ([130.149.17.13]) by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.0/SMI-4.0-sc/19.6.92) id AA06194; Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:09:48 +0200 Received: from tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de with SMTP id AA07648 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4(mail.m4[1.11]) for ); Sat, 22 Aug 1992 22:09:43 +0200 Message-Id: <199208222009.AA07648@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de> Received: from TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE by tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.2MX) with BSMTP id 8406; Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:09:46 +02 Received: from DEARN by TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE (Mailer R2.07B) with BSMTP id 8405; Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:09:45 +0200 Received: from DEARN by DEARN (Mailer R2.08) with BSMTP id 2081; Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:08:06 MET Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 22:05:38 CET From: Frank Mittelbach Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of Subject: kernel viz styles Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 738 > -> BTW, why is \description defined by the document style and not > -> latex.tex? > > -is this important? I would ask the other way around, why is itemize > -inside latex? But both questions do not lead anywhere at the moment. > > But they do: the location of the definition of a command says > something (or, more accurately, should say something) about > whether this is a command that is likely to be defined > differently in different document styles or not. This is why, > e.g., \section is defined by *.sty and not latex.tex. The > question does lead somewhere: is there something special about > the definition of \description vs. \itemize or \enumerate or is > this another anachronism (and there are plenty)? I agree with you that this is something be be watched for, to get a cleaner separation between kernel and style file. However I don't think it helps much to discuss this using the current implementation. Here in fact we have a strong difference between itemize and description namely that the former is much more complicated using internal code that is not likely to be changed. So only the sort of ``changeable items'' are set in the style file, while description is much simpler using only the offical list interface and therefore appears to be defined completely in the style. For ltx3 I envision a much broader set of generic tools to be defined by the kernel and (nearly) no user commands at all. > [Someone who expects to see LaTeX 3.0 someday, but doesn't want > to see the LaTeX user community suffocate holding its breath for > the blessed event.] Neither do I, but most people holding their breath mostly when it comes to actual work. May I announce once more that there is a long task-list out for volunteers to choose from. We need your help not only your good comments (them too, of course)!