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	["521" "Tue" " 8" "February" "1994" "12:37:39" "GMT" "David Carlisle" "carlisle@cs.man.ac.uk" "<199402081238.AA14001@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>" "13" "Re: register usage" "^Date:" nil nil "2" "1994020812:37:39" "register usage" nil "<9402081225.AA01865@m1.cs.man.ac.uk>"])
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In-Reply-To:  <9402081225.AA01865@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> (message from Mike Piff on
              Tue, 8 Feb 1994 11:51:12 LCL)
Date:         Tue, 8 Feb 1994 12:37:39 GMT
From: David Carlisle <carlisle@cs.man.ac.uk>
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Subject:      Re: register usage
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...
Mike> Even worse is the fact that some numbers, like \arraystretch
Mike> *have* to be set as commands, rather than assigned to.

This is bad, but it is not really LaTeX's fault. \arraystretch is not
a <number> it is a <factor> and TeX does not provide any type of
registers or arithmetic for `real' numbers. You can just use them in
certain very specific places for multiplying dimen registers.

It would of course be posible to `fake' fixed point numbers with
dimen registers, eg as done by the calc package.

David