X-VM-VHeader: ("Date:" "Resent-Date:" "From:" "Sender:" "Resent-From" "Originally-From:" "Originally-To:" "To:" "Apparently-To:" "Cc:" "Subject:") nil X-VM-Bookmark: 66 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["2341" "Tue" "2" "February" "93" "21:02:47" "CET" "Michael Downes" "MJD@MATH.AMS.ORG" nil "52" "document classes & numbering systems" "^Date:" nil nil "2"]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (mailserv) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/1.9.92 ) id AA14299; Tue, 2 Feb 93 21:10:38 +0100 Received: from vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (vm.hd-net.uni-heidelberg.de) by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0-sc/19.6.92) id AA20589; Tue, 2 Feb 93 21:10:35 +0100 Message-Id: <9302022010.AA20589@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de> Received: from DHDURZ1 by vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3658; Tue, 02 Feb 93 21:11:38 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 7768; Tue, 02 Feb 93 21:11:36 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 7766; Tue, 02 Feb 93 21:11:34 CET Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Tue, 2 Feb 93 21:02:47 CET From: Michael Downes Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: document classes & numbering systems Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 915 There has been some past discussion about the organization of documentstyles into classes: all members of a class should be interchangeable in the argument of \documentstyle without requiring any changes in the document. Which leads to my question: Suppose one book-class documentstyle has \def\thechapter{\Roman{chapter}} and another has \def\thechapter{\arabic{chapter}} Are these documentstyles interchangeable? Theoretically---supposing that the author has carefully used labels and refs---a document will produce `equivalent' output under each documentstyle, with only 1 and I, 2 and II, 3 and III, ... interchanged. But I hesitate to consider this true equivalence; the number forms used in a document are, I would argue, part of the logical structure of the document, rather than part of the superficial presentation details. If so, then documents of the same class are interchangeable only if: (1) All documentstyles in a given class conform to a single numbering system for all predefined environments, sectioning commands, and other numbered elements. (2) Any numbering changes are done in the individual documents. On the other hand, it seems wrong to forbid a documentstyle from ever changing the default numbering of any element. Or at least, current practice among publishers fairly often includes specifying a normal numbering style for numbered lists and other numbered elements. What should a LaTeX documentstyle writer do if faced with this dilemma? Change the numbering and say that the document is a different class? Or put all the numbering changes into a documentstyle option and require that option to be specified in the individual documents? Or? Although it may not have theoretical significance, there seems to be a fairly important practical problem for publishers, if they receive an electronic document containing the declaration \documentstyle{xxxbook} and they want to change the documentstyle to their own book-class style `yyybook'. If there are any numbering differences, then it's quite likely that the entire book will have to be proofread word by word to catch any instances where the author neglected to use \ref properly, e.g. by writing "in item~(iii)" instead of "in item~\ref{abc}". Comments? Counterarguments? Michael Downes mjd@math.ams.org (Internet)