X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["6640" "Sat" "29" "January" "1994" "00:40:30" "+0100" "Joachim Schrod" "schrod@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de" "<199401282342.AA26195@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>" "147" "SUMMARY: Term sought (and almost found)" "^Date:" nil nil "1" "1994012823:40:30" "SUMMARY: Term sought (and almost found)" nil nil]) Return-Path: Received: from sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (mailserv) by dagobert.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0/24.6.93) id AA16865; Sat, 29 Jan 94 00:42:26 +0100 Received: from mail.cs.tu-berlin.de by sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE (4.1/SMI-4.0-sc/03.06.93) id AA14708; Sat, 29 Jan 94 00:42:22 +0100 Received: from tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de by mail.cs.tu-berlin.de with SMTP id AA26195 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4(mail.m4[1.12]) for <@MAIL.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE:Schoepf@SC.ZIB-BERLIN.DE>); Sat, 29 Jan 1994 00:42:18 +0100 Message-Id: <199401282342.AA26195@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de> Received: from TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE by tubvm.cs.tu-berlin.de (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6802; Sat, 29 Jan 94 00:42:09 +0200 Received: from VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (NJE origin MAILER@DHDURZ1) by TUBVM.CS.TU-BERLIN.DE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 6795; Sat, 29 Jan 1994 00:42:09 +0200 Received: from VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (NJE origin LISTSERV@DHDURZ1) by VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 8444; Sat, 29 Jan 1994 00:41:33 +0000 Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 00:40:30 +0100 From: Joachim Schrod Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: SUMMARY: Term sought (and almost found) Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1353 Thanks to everybody who replied to my plea for help. Actually, it helped a lot and I got a set of terms I can now choose from. ('Though I won't do it now, one should be reluctant to make decisions at 00:40... ;) Since I learned that the context information I gave was not enough, I want to supply them subsequently. Skip ahead to `TERMS SELECTED' if you won't read it. This topic, the search for a common term that encompasses both `document class' and `package', came up first when the CTAN group discussed the new directory layout for the upcoming LaTeX2e distribution. There contributed distribution units -- i.e., macro packages in the traditional sense -- must be placed somewhere. (In the rest of this mail I will denote them simple as .) They may contain document classes, packages, or both (like, e.g., my cweb ). Although I took part in this discussion I didn't really care; eventually we surrounded the problem and now contrib/ is still in use. In the mean time I agreed to update the Generic Local Guide (GLG) that I distributed with International LaTeX back in 1990 for LaTeX2e. (Well, my partner Christine decided that I should do it and that she'll help me. :-) The GLG is a document that shall give a LaTeX user an overview over his installation, over the possibilities he or she has with the authoring system LaTeX. As one important part, the GLG features a section that shall list _all_ installed s. (Here you have immediately one context where I need this term.) For each there should be an abstract and a reference where the real user manual is found. (I use `user manual' in a broad sense, it might be a section in some book.) Of course, that depends on the plan to put some kind of `peer pressure' on 's authors to supply such an abstract with their distributions, more on that below. Both in the intro of this section, and in the meta-manual to the GLG (the description how to adapt it to local needs) I would like to have a handy word for . Such a word is also handy in the description what a source is and what it's good for. (For instance, a source may be a `doc' macro file that is transformed with docstrip, and maybe has a user manual in it! Or it's a MAKEPROG source, or a noweb/nuweb/FWEB source, etc.) Then I made another mistake: I volonteered to write a memo for authors. This memo will outline the parts of a distribution that we find mandatory, and it will name parts that would be very good to see. We (btw, we -- that's the CTAN and the LaTeX team) hope to set some minimal (de-facto) standards for distributions this way. Again, in this memo I need a word for the the authors are creating and submitting to CTAN. A first look in a pocket thesaurus didn't got me further, so I went to this list for further help. The answer of some people that I should use another term instead of `package' are nice (if I wouldn't be a university person, I would say `of acadamic nature' :) :), but miss the point. The terms `document class' and `package' are coined by the LaTeX2e team and are fixed. Moreover they are _technical_ terms in the contexts I write the documents outlined above, they don't have a common dictionary meaning any more. One might think that other terms would have been better (e.g., module would have been more in line with common technical jargon), but that's not the kind of discussion I want to be involved with. (Well, perhaps with Frank et.al., in a pub, after some glasses of wine... We had already strange discussions in such circumstances... ;-) But back to the topic. TERMS SELECTED (Below, `we' is Christine and myself.) -- `module' us a very nice term we like. It has the connection with software units which is important. -- `kit' is also a term that seems fitting to us. It might be a problem since there are people building a TeX CD-kit, this might cause confusion. -- `bundle' is also a candidate. I can't use it in the GLG, but there I might revert to `class or package' like David and Michael suggested. It's certainly ok for the CTAN memo. TERMS THAT SEEMED TO BE OK, WHERE WE SAW PROBLEMS -- Anything with `file' in it does not fit. There are s that contain more than one file. Also `collection' is not possible, it implies more than one file which is also not necessarily so. -- I won't use `macro' in any combination. This is a pet peeve of mine, an author does not use macros or commands, he or she _tags_ the structure of the document. One has to get this procedural thinking out of the author's minds, it's dangerous and moreover contributes to the image of ``LaTeX is something for hackers.'' -- `packet', `pack', etc. is to similar to `package'. The cognitive distance is too small, especially new and/or naive users might confuse it. -- `style' has the same problems. This is, by tradition, a term used for the LaTeX 2.09 stuff. In our opinion, it's important to stress the difference. -- `genus', `species', `suite', `agglomeration' (I didn't know that this word exists in English...), `amalgamation' (I knew it only from my chemistry courses in high school ;) are words we rejected since they did not convey any relevant significance to us. If we would have read them in a document, we wouldn't have attached a meaning to them that matches , even not distant. Since the documents are oriented towards an international audience, we consider ourselves as the guinea pigs -- if we, as non-native speakers with a strong technical background in this area, wouldn't understand it; many other non-native speakers might have problems as well. Well, that's it. Last, but not least, I want to thank all folks that answered my question in such a quick time -- the Net strikes again! Michael O'Connor Joerg Knappen Narendra Ravi sebastian (who was not the `daemon' this time) barbara (as always :) Randolph J. Herber Mike Piff Robin Fairbairns Reino de Boer David Carlisle (who rightly asked what I wanted really) Michael Barr Michael Downes John Lees Cheers, Joachim & Christine (hope we see some of you in St. Barbara :) -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Joachim Schrod Christine Detig Computer Science Department Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany