X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1644" "Thu" "24" "September" "92" "22:44:46" "CET" "Frank Mittelbach" "MITTELBACH@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE" nil "36" "using a different escape char" "^Date:" nil nil "9"]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (serv01) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/1.9.92 ) id AA23430; Thu, 24 Sep 92 22:49:44 +0200 Received: from vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (vm.hd-net.uni-heidelberg.de) by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.0/SMI-4.0-sc/19.6.92) id AA02639; Thu, 24 Sep 92 22:49:37 +0200 Message-Id: <9209242049.AA02639@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de> Received: from DHDURZ1 by vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6208; Thu, 24 Sep 92 22:45:15 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 6184; Thu, 24 Sep 92 22:45:11 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 6181; Thu, 24 Sep 92 22:45:09 CET Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Thu, 24 Sep 92 22:44:46 CET From: Frank Mittelbach Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of Subject: using a different escape char Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 793 > Tarjei T. Jensen writes > Could LaTeX 3 use a different escape character > than backslash (e.g. @ ) and reserve backslash for compatibility > with LaTeX 2.09? Or is @ used in so many places already as an > ordinary character that it could not be replaced by say, the > underscore? > > This would mean that there would be two escape characters around, for > old LaTeXers would never change that in their documents. Besides @ is > traditionally used in the names of internal LaTeX macros that are not > accessible by the end user. > > But why change the good old \ anyway? i don't think it is a good idea to keep two characters out of normal use --- one is bad enough if the subset of characters found on all keybords is small already. in fact as far as i no even the backslash will be found on all keyboards (isn't that the case in nordic countries?) on the ibm mainframes one has to fight to get a [ or a ] which is dropped in favour of a cent sign and a broken bar, etc. this would not provide an additional level of compatibility since if both characters really are escape characters they could be used interchangeable. we think that changes which are necessary to make use of an old latex source should be made by running a conversion routine once that translates the source. we like to keep the look and feel of latex as far as possible so that users which are comfortable with the current latex find their way into using the new version. however, we intend to provide an interface which allows to change the input syntax easily to completely different conventions, eg sgml's concrete syntax or something else. frank