X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1496" "Wed" "3" "November" "93" "16:24:48" "-0700" "Michal Jaegermann" "michal@GORTEL.PHYS.UALBERTA.CA" nil "30" "Re: nf prefix and statement on LaTeX2e compatibility" "^Date:" nil nil "11"]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (mailserv) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/24.6.93) id AA18080; Thu, 4 Nov 93 00:29:24 +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/03.06.93) id AA25394; Thu, 4 Nov 93 00:29:21 +0100 Message-Id: <9311032329.AA25394@sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE> Received: from DHDURZ1 by vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2816; Thu, 04 Nov 93 00:28:08 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 9936; Thu, 04 Nov 93 00:27:45 CET Received: from DHDURZ1 by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) with BSMTP id 9933; Thu, 04 Nov 93 00:27:41 CET Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: <93Nov3.130504mst.95543@relay.Phys.UAlberta.Ca>; from "Frank Mittelbach" at Nov 3, 93 1:04 pm Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 16:24:48 -0700 From: Michal Jaegermann Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple Recipients of Subject: Re: nf prefix and statement on LaTeX2e compatibility Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1086 Kudos to Frank Mittelbach for his very interesting posting about goals and what we should expect from upcoming LaTeX2e. If I understand that part correctly it seems that 'nf' prefix on some style files came as a historical accident and its usefulness under LaTeX2e will be at least limited, if not doubtful. As you already know, I would strongly vote "drop it", AW notwithstanding. They'll survive. :-) I would think that my reasons should be clear from what I wrote previously. I do not expect that there is really a big possibility to mix it up with "the plain TeX times.sty", since this will be 'times.tex' anyway. :-) Besides, it seems that LaTeX2e will have really ample opportunities to check if it loads something compatible. In another, but related posting, with a subject "Why I still use ofss, Michael Barr explains that this is so because "... I have added fonts (cmssbx that I use for real, complex, &c., eufm, rfsr), made up 14, 17 and 20 pt styles (and figured out how to get article.sty to load them)...". It seems, therefore, that he put quite a bit of time and effort inventing particular solutions for problems which can be solved easier and in a more general manner by using NFSS(2) and/or future LaTeX2e. He provides an excellent example why it is counterproductive to introduce gratuitous incompatibilities when software obviously advances and why answers like "Use awk, Luke!" are not good enough. Michal michal@gortel.phys.ualberta.ca ntomczak@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca