Message-Id: <199402091901.AA27807@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Date:         Wed, 9 Feb 1994 18:44:02 GMT
From: David Rhead <David_Rhead@VME.CCC.NOTTINGHAM.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:      Exam papers
Status: R

Would it be possible to divide the "exam papers" discussion into two?
*    that which has some possible relevance to LaTeX3
*    that which has no relevance to LaTeX3.

                         Regarding the former ...

I guess that there are some structures that LaTeX 2.09/2e doesn't
handle particularly well.  E.g.
*  conference-proceedings
*  issue of a journal, made up of a lot of individual contributions
If it is desired that LaTeX3 should support such structures, some thought
will need to be given to these structures over the next "two years".

"Exam papers" might be one of these.  Might it be worth someone (Mike
Piff?) specifying a DTD (pardon my SGML, but I don't want to pre-empt
discussion of terms such as classes, styles, packages, mappings, ...  ) for
an exam paper
either formally
or     informally, e.g., by producing two or three .tex files that represent
       the "logical markup" that someone specifying an exam paper "ought to
       be able to use".
Or a mini-volunteer-task on the subject (with its own mailing list, if
desired)?  The resulting structure-specification could then be passed on
in "a report back" to "the project team", who would put a "wish" on the
LaTeX3 wish-list of the form "it would be nice if LaTeX3 supported
structure-to-design mappings of the form
\mapping{exam-paper}{sheffield-exam-paper}, where the exam-paper structure
is as specified by the someone/mini-task, and the structures impose the
following constraints on page makeup ...  ".  Thus:
* nothing further would need saying about the structures peculiar to exam
  papers on LATEX-L until the "report back" (perhaps a few months
  from now).
* at some later stage, it might be possible to get a considered view of the
  structures and whether LaTeX3 can support such structures nicely (perhaps
  at the same stage when "conference proceedings" are considered, if there is
  such a stage).

This might be more likely to get better LaTeX3 support for such structures
(or at least recognition of any sub-structures that might be needed, or a
considered opinion that "we regret to say that LaTeX3 isn't really going to
be the tool for the job") than the frantic sequences of LATEX-L messages
packed into the past few days in which I think any LaTeX3 "wood" has been
largely obscured by lots of non-LaTeX3 "trees".

                         Regarding the latter ...

As others have said, it seems desirable that any discussion of
     You are given LaTeX2e.
     Hence, or otherwise, produce exam papers.
should take place elsewhere.%
\footnote{For "or otherwise", I'm told that 3B2 can import TeX}

LaTeX2e was a consolidation exercise, so there isn't much prospect of any
nice new exam-paper-handling stuff, and my understanding is that you'll
have to make do with what there is.

There are various natural places for discussing the hacking involved in
"exam papers via LaTeX2e until LaTeX3 appears", but I don't think that
LATEX-L is the place, since:
* the LaTeX3 content is likely to be zero (assuming that there is a
  parallel someone/mini-task, as envisaged above, specifying the structure of
  an exam paper to "report back" to the project team)
* otherwise readers of LATEX-L may spend so much time trying to
  dig the LaTeX3 stuff out of the non-LaTeX3 stuff that LATEX-L hinders,
  rather than helps, progress towards LaTeX3.

                                                                David Rhead