Message-Id: <199403121954.AA12854@mail.cs.tu-berlin.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
In-Reply-To:  <01H9VXNQ1L5E8Y6MFX@MATH.AMS.ORG>
Date:         Sat, 12 Mar 1994 14:53:47 -0500
From: bbeeton <BNB@MATH.AMS.ORG>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L <LATEX-L@DHDURZ1.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: amslatex and T1 encoding
Status: R

frank proposes that
     b) there are parts of ams-latex which are of general interest to the
    latex community far beyond the production issue, for example amstex.sty.

i agree.  and i agree that ams should (and will), in its
instructions to authors, make a very strong statement that no
changes in fonts or similar features may be used for papers to be
submitted to ams publications.  however, authors don't always
read instructions, and a considerable amount of time is now spent
in trying to figure out what it is that doesn't work when a new
submission is passed into the production stream.  sending a report
back to an author that his file can't be used, without any
explanation, only annoys authors, while searching for the problem
and discovering that it's a failure to follow instructions is a
waste of everyone's time.  it's much better to find a foolproof
way to make the author aware of, and adhere to, the restrictions
before anything is sent here.

i'm sure that all possible efforts are being made so that the core
of ams-latex -- amstex.sty -- will be bulletproof for general use.
as i said before, i'm not the person who's doing this work, and
haven't checked on what techniques are being used.

the suggestion that the "house classes" check to make sure the
encoding is appropriate is a good one; it would have to be done in
the versions that are distributed for the technique to be effective.
i'll make sure that those making the decisions and doing the work
are aware of the expectations about the more general use of
ams-latex.
                                                -- bb