Message-Id: <9302081511.AA01445@sc.zib-berlin.dbp.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de>
Date:         Mon, 8 Feb 93 13:14:02 +0000
From: Paul Taylor <pt@DOC.IC.AC.UK>
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:      task list, diagrams in particular
Status: R


George Greenwade has recently mailed to a sub-list:
> One of the enumerated responsibilities outlined for task coordinators in
> the ``Volunteer work for the LaTeX3 project'' document is:
> > The second job of a task coordinator is to write a `task specification'
> > containing more details than were in the volunteer task list. It should
> > describe the goals and any restrictions that apply. This task specification
> > will need to be reviewed by someone on the LaTeX3 kernel team, and
> > afterwards it can be sent out to any additional volunteers for the same
> > task, as a guide for the work.
but it seems more appropriate to reply to the general latex 3 list.

I agreed in October to be "co-ordinator" for commutative diagrams
(in category theory (pure mathematics) and theoretical computer science)
and expected to receive some comments on this subject from other who are
interested (Kris Rose, for example), but got nothing.

The "task list" says that what I am supposed to do should take "2-3 days".
Now the programming I have done has taken two orders of magnitude more time
than that, so I'm a bit puzzled as to what job does take that long.
I'm also a bit worried by the language of the rest of George's message,
which sounds like that that is used by middle managers in large organisations
to their juniors :-).

The code I have written is not LaTeX-specific, but I am happy to co-operate
with the LaTeX-3 project. I suspect that this is the position of other
task co-ordinators, at least in "applications" areas.  Maybe, George, you
could give us more guidance on how to proceed in co-ordinating the efforts
of those who already have their own separate up-and-running applications
macros, as is the case for Kris Rose and myself, for example.

Now turning to my "task" in particular, I have in mind to write to those,
including Kris, who have worked in this area. Maybe there are other readers
of this list who have something to contribute, and I would like to hear
(by private email) from them. I haven't drafted the letter yet.

Although my application is a very specialised one, the techniques are
applicable to any kind of diagram with the following characteristics:
(1) there are nodes and edges
(2) these can naturally (idiomatically) be organised into
    a (rectangular) matrix up to, say, 20x20 cells
(3) between the nodes the edges are predominantly horizontal and vertical
    but may be diagonal and possibly curved
(4) the edges are naturally required to stretch through the empty space
    towards the nodes to which they point.
One non-mathematical application I had in mind is circuit diagrams in
electronics (if anyone draws such things any more!).

There was a correspondence on the category theory list some months ago
in which some people got very upset when I rejected suggestions which
were unspecified (in the technical sense), of minority interest and far
from what I could implement, and I don't want to get into that again.
Other suggestions are very welcome.

I have a new release of my own commutative diagrams package, together
with a more extensive manual. You can get it by anonymous ftp from
	theory.doc.ic.ac.uk   146.169.2.27
as	/tex/contrib/Taylor/tex/diagrams-V3,25.tex
and	/tex/contrib/Taylor/tex/diagrams-manual.tex (also dvi, ps & booklet)

Paul Taylor