Message-Id: <9209111848.AA18795@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 92 20:30:17 CET
From: Don Hosek <DHOSEK@HMCVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
To: Multiple recipients of <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Subject:      Section headings
Status: R


A few points:
- There are are two common naming schemes for headings by
  compositors and designers. One is to use A-head, B-head,
  C-head, etc. the other is essentially the LaTeX arrangement.
  The latter is an older convention and the reference where I saw
  this was a book published in the 50s which unfortunately is
  part of someone else's library.
    Spec sheets which I have seen invariably have used A-head,
  etc., but most of these have also come out of a new generation
  of designers or people who aren't designers at all.
- End-of-section special handling is really rather simple with
  the current mark-up scheme.
- Document inclusion is also not terribly difficult.
- Nobody has come up with names yet for a LaTeX209 naming.
- Secretaries complain about typing \alpha vs ctrl-shift-alt-a.
  In short, the most common LaTeX users want to minimize
  keystrokes. Keep this in mind when proposing schemes for
  markup.
- Also, don't propose the \begin...\end scheme as a replacement
  for something that can't be 100% replicated using the old
  markup scheme. For one thing, that will mean that your
  compatibility mode won't be workable. Also, as noted above,
  given the choice of a long form and a short form, the majority
  of LaTeX users will use the short form (when was the last time
  you saw somebody use \begin{math}...\end{math} (which, by the
  way, seems to have a bug. Try typing
   xxx \begin{math} x \end{math} xxx
  and see what happens (I didn't just break the rules by slipping
  that in, did I Frank?
    It does prove a point though since this bug has apparently
  gone unnoticed for no fewer than three years. Maybe longer.
  It's never used in the LaTeX book and of the two lousy
  knockoffs I have, one only mentions it, the other conveniently
  forgets its existence entirely.

-dh