Message-Id: <199402081130.AA12284@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Tue, 8 Feb 1994 11:25:00 LCL
From: Mike Piff <M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk>
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

From:          Joachim Schrod <schrod@ITI.INFORMATIK.TH-DARMSTADT.DE>
%>> (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...)
%>

The demands come only indirectly from the lecturers. Usually some publisher
says that papers must be formatted in a certain way to produce camera ready
copy. The lecturers don't have much choice about it. If they say "why don't
you produce LaTeX style files then?" the publisher will say "sorry, we don't
support that. Why don't you do it in WordPerfect or Word?" Whether it is more
or less difficult for the lecturer, or the appearance in TeX is better, is
irrelevant in these circumstances. And I don't think any of us really want
users to desert to WordPerfect and Word, do we?  The argument that one is not
interested in how beautiful the thing looks, so long as it isn't bl**dy
difficult to get that section heading there and this symbol here is one
I have heard too often from WordPerfect and Word users.

Mike Piff

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%% Dr M J Piff, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of %%
%% Sheffield, UK.                    e-mail: M.Piff@sheffield.ac.uk %%
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