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References: <pc910inkm2.fsf@epsilon.ams.org>
            <199706110929.KAA19914@lochnagarn.elsevier.co.uk>
Message-ID:  <199706110956.TAA01247@flash.anu.edu.au>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
In-Reply-To:  <199706110929.KAA19914@lochnagarn.elsevier.co.uk>
Date:         Wed, 11 Jun 1997 19:56:21 +1000
From: Richard Walker <Richard.Walker@CS.ANU.EDU.AU>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: automatic numbering
Status: R

Sebastian Rahtz writes:
 >  b) please lets have portable programs written in the genuinely
 >     popular langauges, viz TeX or C++

Ha ha, I think Sebastian omitted a couple of smilies.

Let's keep it `in the family', viz. a TeX-only solution.  We have all
worked very hard to make sure that TeX works `the same' across
platforms.  I strongly agree that adding a Unixy tool is a backward
step.  Perl is not Unix-specific, it's `way cool', but not everybody
has it.  (`TeX Live'-style solutions - precompiled binaries - may be
the answer to this objection.)

In my opninion, what we need are smarter tools or smarter support for
combining multiple documents into one.

Specials aside, dviconcat works well at the level of combining dvi
files.  But combining TeX or LaTeX source files is still not so easy.
Publishers will come up with their own solutions.  (Perhaps Sebastian
can inform us about Elsevier practice.)  Let's work towards some sort
of standard or protocol for combining documents.

Richard.