Message-Id: <199402021242.AA16276@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
In-Reply-To:  <199402021101.MAA06471@hp5.iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de> from
              "Mike Piff" at Feb 2, 94 10:51:24 am
Date:         Wed, 2 Feb 1994 13:39:59 +0100
From: Joachim Schrod <schrod@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Subject: AmS-LaTeX with 2e
Status: R

Mike Piff wrote:
>
> From:          Rainer Schoepf <schoepf@SC.ZIB-BERLIN.DE>
> %>
> %>Mike Piff writes regarding the renaming of \mediumseries and
> %>\normalshape:
> %>
> %> > Let's have a tradition in LaTeX of re-naming everything every couple of
> %> > years. We all like editing our files regularly, don't we?
> %>
> %>I find this remark extremely besides the point. Let me note that
> %>
> %>- the original commands were introduced in NFSS2 which is beta
> %>  software,
>
> This was a general comment about renaming of commands, not specific to these
> two. In fact, I found none of my .sty files that used it, but quite a few
> that used \normalshapedefault. Is this now to be changed to \upshapedefault
> in the future?
>
> [...]
>
> If we had all conscientiously edited our files to use \normalshape when nfss2
> was released, we would have had timebombs all over the place. But the same
> goes for any other commands that change/disappear.

Mike, have you slept bad? Problems with your partner or your children?

I sympathize with Rainer a lot; such a mail is impertinent, to say
the least.

If you use internal details of _beta_ software that is changed later,
you don't have ANY reason to complain. NOT A BIT. Shut up. It was YOUR
choice to use it.
    If you want a save world, stay with officially released software,
and do not use things that are released so that others can help to
make improvements.
    The only things that result from such complaints are that open
developments -- that authors release software early to get comments --
are done more seldom. And this is extremly bad.


After all, I don't understand your problem:
    If you don't want to change your documents, don't change them.
Let them be LaTeX 2.09 documents and use the compatibility mode.
Simple, isn't it?

*If* you really want to change them to LaTeX2e, you should check
what's available. From the GLG:

    You use the \package{newlfont} package if you have documents written
    with NFSS1 that you want to convert to \LaTeXe{}, but where you don't
    want to change all font declarations. It declares tags like ş\rmş or
    ş\itş to behave like they did in NFSS1 with the şnewlfontş style
    option.

    No options are supported by this package.

    The package uses the files \file{newlfont.sty} and all files from the
    \package{latexsym} package (see section~\ref{package:latexsym}).

Besides the tags ş\rmş etc., \mediumseries and \normalshape is defined as
well. So -- do not only change \documentstyle to \documentclass, add a
\usepackage{newlfont} as well.

        Joachim

--
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Joachim Schrod                  Email: schrod@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de
Computer Science Department
Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany