Message-Id: <199402071824.AA19087@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
In-Reply-To:  <199402071730.SAA10780@hp5.iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de> from
              "Mike Piff" at Feb 7, 94 05:08:21 pm
Date:         Mon, 7 Feb 1994 19:23:21 +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: Additional features
Status: R

Mike Piff wrote:
>
> (Apart from AMS-(La)TeX stuff, nothing here is
> standard LaTeX, as far as I can see, and I am sure we are not atypical. Our
> computing services people presumably push Word so much because its
> maintenance is less costly in manpower than LaTeX.)

Might be, that that's part of the problem.

Why don't you handle it just like Word: If it cannot be done without
serious redefinition of internals, it is not possible. Period. ``Any
more questions? Sorry, no changes -- period.'' <etc, ad infinitum>
Then it's not more costly in manpower -- but the output is still
better, footnotes are handled correctly since years, cross references
work, one can incorporate bibliographic references easier, index
creation is easier, etc. All the reasons to use LaTeX...

If one really changes LaTeX in its internals all over the place, it
might be better looking at other macro packages like Lollipop or
Amy's. Usually they are better for creating one's own markup, they
are easier to extend.

Actually, I have created hundreds of LaTeX documents and had never to
change the output routine or other deep internals. At our site, LaTeX
is in use by thousands of people, and they don't change it either. But
I also don't want to win typographic contests with LaTeX, I want to
write research papers (that's my profession...)

In addition, I really cannot see the problems in switching to
LaTeX2e. I'm just finished converting four large styles to document
classes, and 21 supported, non-trivial, style options to packages. It
was _neither_ difficult _nor_ did I fall in any traps. I needed two
hours; and that was all. Besides, most other local (i.e., trivial)
style options just could be used in a \usepackage, I didn't had to
change them.

Cheers,
        Joachim

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