X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1410" "Sat" "21" "June" "1997" "11:46:32" "+0400" "Vladimir Volovich" "TeX@VVV.VSU.RU" nil "36" "Re: what is a latex command" "^Date:" nil nil "6" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.1]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id JAA32686; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 09:48:04 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <3.ACF587BD@listserv.gmd.de>; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 9:48:03 +0200 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 157304 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 09:47:58 +0200 Received: from cc.vsu.ru (root@[194.226.29.62]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.7.6/8.7.4) with ESMTP id JAA26667 for ; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 09:47:45 +0200 (MET DST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by cc.vsu.ru (8.8.5-MVC-230497/8.8.5) with UUCP id LAA30708 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 11:44:52 +0400 Received: from vvv (vvv@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by vvv.vrn.ru (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA00246 for ; Sat, 21 Jun 1997 11:46:32 +0400 X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; Linux 2.1.42 i586) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <199706181237.MAA00063@ew160061.nets.de.eds.com> <199706191620.RAA07046@fell.open.ac.uk> <33A97714.34BAB20B@vvv.vsu.ru> <199706200736.JAA07288@perdita.zdv.Uni-Mainz.de> <33AA7A81.6F1137F1@vvv.vsu.ru> <199706201304.PAA08599@perdita.zdv.Uni-Mainz.de> <33AAF007.12526594@vvv.vsu.ru> <199706202212.AAA03367@frank.zdv.uni-mainz.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <33AB86D7.C1A536D@vvv.vsu.ru> Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 11:46:32 +0400 From: Vladimir Volovich Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: what is a latex command Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 2149 Hello, Frank Mittelbach wrote: > i think that is saddling the horse from the tail. if you look at the > way Lamport originally wrote LaTeX you will find that he used a pascal > like peudo code Oh, it's interesting! Was that implementation able to deal with mathematics? > and later on translated it into TeX (and sometimes got > the TeX interpeter changed or enhanced because he asked Don something > that wasn't possible. > > so execpt for the moment that there is an abstract LaTeX language and > it is defined by the LaTeX manual. and even if one of its interpreter > (TeX) allows to use constructs outside of it this doesn't mean that > they are part of the language, it only means that such documents are > not latex documents (only that we don't mind much as long as we all > use the same interpreter. Ok. Probably, my point of view on LaTeX is limited. Of course, the authors of LaTeX can specify, what is the `real' LaTeX syntax, and may want the others to look at LaTeX as to an abstract language (even not TeX-related). > but your point that there is only one such interpreter is simply > wrong. there is, for example, a voice rendering system that turns > latex including math and all into speech --- very impressive in fact, > and it deals with the full latex language as defined above. I did not see this system :-) Is it available at CTAN? With best regards, Vladimir.