References: <pc910inkm2.fsf@epsilon.ams.org>
Message-ID:  <199706110929.KAA19914@lochnagarn.elsevier.co.uk>
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Date:         Wed, 11 Jun 1997 10:29:02 +0100
From: Sebastian Rahtz <s.rahtz@ELSEVIER.CO.UK>
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Subject:      Re: automatic numbering
Status: R

 > immensely helpful to the author during the process of writing. However,
 > when a document is sent to the publisher, the numbering of its elements
 > is fixed, and continued use of the automatic numbering mechanisms
 > consumes system resources needlessly and can become actually dangerous
 > during the production process: If there are any mistakes in the
what about those of us who convert the LaTeX to SGML, preserving the
concept of automatic numbering? what you suggest would be seriously
retrograde, IMHO

 > I am inclined to think, therefore, that the ideal submission process
 > should involve a step where all the automatic numbers are replaced by
 > their explicit values from the .aux file. (In particular, what the
also, the number still needs to be abstract. i don't want an explicit
`1.1' when the style is  `I a', for instance!

 > The missing piece: a portable program to plug in the explicit numbers at
 > the right place (or erase them) on demand. If the syntax is chosen
 > carefully I dare say a sed script will suffice for all practical
 > purposes, and sed is available for a lot of platforms these days. Perl, awk,
 > and emacs-lisp versions wouldn't be too hard to supply either, to give

um, excuse me, but this company (the worlds largest scientific
publisher, and thus a big consumer of LaTeX) would not remotely
consider sed, awk or emacs-lisp in a production environment based
around Microsoft products. Perl _possibly_ but I doubt it. Not Written
In Seattle.

I am not saying that what you suggest would not be a useful tool in
the armoury, but
 a) i would not like to see it `recommended' for publisher submission
 b) please lets have portable programs written in the genuinely
    popular langauges, viz TeX or C++

just my personal thoughts

Sebastian