X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["882" "Wed" "18" "June" "1997" "14:03:40" "+0200" "Chris Rowley" "C.A.Rowley@OPEN.AC.UK" nil "25" "Re: ideal future document processing environment" "^Date:" nil nil "6" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from VZDMZY.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (vzdmzy.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE [134.93.178.25]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id PAA11819; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 15:57:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from DIRECTORY-DAEMON by MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (PMDF V5.0-4 #22141) id <01IK7YNBMLLCH8JZJR@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE>; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:16:11 +0100 Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de) by MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE (PMDF V5.0-4 #22141) id <01IK7YF8OOU8H640CX@MZDMZA.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE>; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:09:36 +0100 Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <10.2E0FB3B9@listserv.gmd.de>; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:05:45 +0200 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 155251 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:05:41 +0200 Received: from ixgate01.dfnrelay.d400.de (ixgate01.dfnrelay.d400.de [193.174.248.1]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.7.6/8.7.4) with ESMTP id OAA19932 for ; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:05:34 +0200 (MET DST) X400-Received: by mta d400relay in /PRMD=dfnrelay/ADMD=d400/C=de/; Relayed; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:03:52 +0200 X400-Received: by mta venus in /PRMD=uk.ac/ADMD= /C=gb/; Relayed; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:02:55 +0200 X400-Received: by mta fell.open.ac.uk in /PRMD=UK.AC/ADMD= /C=GB/; Relayed; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:01:42 +0200 X400-Received: by mta UK.AC.MHS-RELAY.SUN2 in /PRMD=uk.ac/ADMD= /C=gb/; Relayed; Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:03:40 +0200 Alternate-recipient: Allowed In-reply-to: <199706171806.OAA27185@fenris.math.albany.edu> Reply-to: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Message-id: <199706181201.NAA05759@fell.open.ac.uk> Content-identifier: Re: ideal fut... MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X400-Content-type: P2-1988 (22) X400-MTS-identifier: [/PRMD=UK.AC/ADMD= /C=GB/;<199706181201.NAA05759@fell.open] X400-Originator: C.A.Rowley@open.ac.uk X400-Recipients: non-disclosure:; References: <199706171750.SAA03440@fell.open.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 14:03:40 +0200 From: Chris Rowley Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: ideal future document processing environment Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 2098 Mark Steinberger's contribution reminded me to take up another of Sebastian's assertions: that the use of TeX is declining. This is certainly true of some of the worlds I inhabit and this is neither surprising nor worrying given the number of free and expensive (and in-between) systems now available that are reasonably easy to use and produce reasonable results. However, in other of my worlds (in particular the one that Mark also hangs out in quite a lot) the use of TeX is increasing very rapidly and ihas become simply "part of the furniture". This has led to (as I see it) an unfortunate attitude, particularly on the aprt of some very powerful people, that I would summarise as follows: Classic TeX must remain unchanged and be used for ever. Classic here means: pk cm (note not ec) fonts; hand entry with dumb editors; nothing hyper; ... Somewhat worrying? chris