References: <97100208475917@multivac.jb.man.ac.uk>
            <6960-Thu02Oct1997142210+0100-s.rahtz@elsevier.co.uk>
Message-ID:  <199710031339.OAA00927@frank.zdv.uni-mainz.de>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
In-Reply-To:  <6960-Thu02Oct1997142210+0100-s.rahtz@elsevier.co.uk>
Date:         Fri, 3 Oct 1997 14:39:59 +0100
From: Frank Mittelbach <Frank.Mittelbach@UNI-MAINZ.DE>
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: LaTeX journal and publisher macros
Status: R

Sebastian Rahtz writes:

 >  > at least initially.  The question is, where do we go from here?  After
 >  > preaching to the choir, we must first get everyone to agree to abide by
 >  > a future standard, and then implement that standard, both as quickly as
 >  > possible.
 > talk to Michael Downes, David Carlisle, Taco Hoekwater, me, and Patrick,
 > and get copies of their extended markup specification for, eg,
 > frontmatter and citation. then do an analysis and suggest a superset.
 > merge in the markup of all other journal styles you can locate.
 >
 > the best way to achieve change is to make a concrete suggestion of
 > what you want done. just saying `lets talk' gets nowhere. Frank and
 > his gang at 2e need *concrete* specifications, not just a manifesto.

I wholeheartedly agree.

what we need are explicit specifications of what the interface need to
support and how it should look like (there first part is even more
important)

As David is in fact working on this right now i'm sure he will have
something to say about possible approaches and the current specs once
he is back and reading this thread. (perhaps he even has replied by
now which is difficult to see off-line)

 >  > especially with the internals of LaTeX2e.  In other words, I would be
 >  > happy to contribute as a programmer, but fear that there are others who
 >
 > programming is the least of it. draft a document outlining proposed
 > changes and additions to the standard `article' markup, and discuss
 > the applicaability of that. only when the markup is agreed does anyone
 > need to try and implement it. hacking something, or worrying whether
 > something is technically possible, is entirely the wrong way to start...

again, yes. not programming is required at this stage. instead people
willing to contribute should take a look at the current specs and
compare their power with the requirement of any journal they can get
hold off, as well as the specs used by journals cls or 209 style
files.

From that detailed proposals for extensions/changes for a standarized
specification should be made. this would bring us a long way along to
some:

 > i think we'd all benefit from a new articleplusplus.cls

once we do have those new specs for various parts of what the cls
files have to deal with, we can and will extend the LaTeX distribution
with *additional* new standard cls files that use these interfaces.
Then (or a bit before) it is time to also work on implementing journal
.cls files for different journals --- in my estimate this will be
(early) next year

now in case you intend to ask where are the specs for frontmatter? ---
don't ask me ;-) i'm sure that David will say something about that

frank