Message-Id: <199401261519.AA07482@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
In-Reply-To:  <01H84UVY9UZ68Y5MV1@MATH.AMS.ORG>
Date:         Wed, 26 Jan 1994 10:17:21 -0500
From: Michael Downes <MJD@MATH.AMS.ORG>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      class defaults
Status: R

> hyphenation - i suppose you want me to type \language{EN} or whatever
> at the start of every single thing i write? we are stuck with american
> hyphenation by default for ever and ever? sigh. i imagine we are
>
> sebastian

> ...  if i have to specofy
> uk hyphenation in every document, i think my colleagues in the US
> should suffer too by saying \documentclass[lettersize]{...} in every
> job.

The default paper size for {article} is US letter size principally for
historical reasons: article.sty was written by LL originally for US
defaults ten years ago.  When documentstyles were still styles and not
classes. If a documentclass must provide a default design, then perhaps
by the same logic it must also provide a default language, font
encoding, and paper size. (I'm inclined to think that using the default
article design for Russian or Arabic would be a design blunder similar in
magnitude to the blunder of using wrong hyphenation patterns.)

An international documentclass like `article', if it were newborn today,
should probably use by default an international paper size,
international font encoding, ... and international language! I guess
this means A4 paper, T1 fonts, and Esperanto :-)

Michael