Message-Id: <9209281757.AA11528@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 92 18:57:15 CET
From: "J%org Knappen" <KNAPPEN@VKPMZD.KPH.UNI-MAINZ.DE>
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:      Re: Converse of \nonumber
Status: R


David Mermin said some time ago in the column ``reference frame'' of
Physics Today: ``every equation must be numbered''. The argument (very
neatly presented) goes that no-one including the author themself knows
which equation will be referenced -- by the author, or by some reader of
the paper.

The other thing is that a whole bunch of commands and environments have a
*-form with no numbers (\chapter, \section, eqnarray), but other similar
ones do not (personally, I missed equation*, which is called
displaymath). I'd like a more consistent naming scheme.

But...is this really our aim ? Or should the numbering/nonumbering be a
part of the style description ? Should really the author care of numbering
details ? Of course there are cases, where hand-adjusting is need, e. g.
with equations broken over several lines (will LaTeX3 have an algorithm to
do this automatically, say a {longeqn} environment ?). And of course,
there are authors who want to care about these things and they should have
the opportunity to do so.

If I were the LaTeX style designer of some journal that requires each
equation to be numbered, I'd probably like commands like these:
\letenvironment{displaymath}{equation}% number all equations, even if the
                                      % author uses displaymath
or:
\undefineenvironment{eqnarray*}       % in our style, the eqnarray*
                                      % environment is undefined
                                      % (if you try to use it, you get an
                                      % error message)

And for proofreading maybe I liked a utility which manipulates the .tex
source for my work by inserting at each equation comments showing the
actual number. This would allow me to search for the equation number in the
case I want to do a correction there.


The thoughts above may be inconsistent or impossible to realise (I have not
ernestly checked this), but I hope they are still worth posting...

Yours, J"org Knappen.