Message-Id: <199402100949.AA14581@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Comments:     Warning -- original Sender: tag was kris@ZEUS.MPCE.MQ.EDU.AU
In-Reply-To:  <199402100925.AA09573@odin.diku.dk>
Date:         Thu, 10 Feb 1994 20:47:03 +1100
From: "Kristoffer H. Rose" <kris@DIKU.DK>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      keyed options lists (Was: RE: A philosophical....)
Status: R

Frank Poppe writes:

 > I suggested a way out of this as reaction to the "new features"
 > discussion. I did not get any reaction so I fear something went wrong
 > with my mail. If this suggestion is a foolish one, please point it out
 > (people generally don't seem to hesitate pointing out the inadequateness
 > of reactions on this list..:-).

I agree with David: this is not for LaTeX2e because LaTeX2e should be
stable.  Thus new features -- even simple ones -- should be left out.
(IMO even the \documentclass thing should have been left out until
LaTeX3 or at least it should explicitly have been an `experimental
feature' such that its merits could have been discussed in depth
here...).

 > Anyway, I'd suggest
 >         \documentclass[[key1]value[key2]value]{article} ....
 > as well as
 >...
 > The syntax key=value is of course more natural, but is seems very
 > difficult to distinghuish that from the current syntax.

IMO, no, since it just means you can't use `=' in option names where
your suggestion means you can't use `[' in option names!

In fact it is not particularly complicated to implement the
option=value syntax.  I still prefer that *for LaTeX3* because it is
so nicely intuitive (in fact the notation is not only used in
programming languages (teh first was PL/I, I think), but also SGML
allows a similar syntax).  I would prefer the `official' use of
\section to be

        \section{full}
        \section[mark=short]{full}
        \section[mark=short, toc={longer, may contain =}]{full}

*always* giving all options used, and allow

        \section[short]{full}

as a default for backwards compatibility and/or convenience.

--
Kristoffer Hxgsbro ROSE                         Internet: kris@diku.dk
DIKU, U of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 1, 2100 Kxbenhavn X, DANMARK
phone: +45 35321400       direct: +45 35321420       fax: +45 35321401
--
World Wide Web URL:   file://ftp.diku.dk/diku/users/kris/WWW/home.html