Message-ID:  <199710130252.VAA07554@dcdrjh.fnal.gov>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Date:         Sun, 12 Oct 1997 21:52:54 -0500
From: "Randolph J. Herber" <herber@DCDRJH.FNAL.GOV>
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 & email (Was: LaTeX journal and publisher macros)
Status: R

The LaTeX (and TeX) world is not simply just:

        PCs of either the IBM or Apple types,
        DEC VMS systems of either the VAX or Alpha types,
        UNIX systems of any of a large number of types,
        mainframes running ancient operating systems
        (which are not bad or evil just because they are old),
        etc.

The display system on some of these systems are not graphic displays
with the capacity to have arbitary widths or heights.

Some users in the LaTeX and TeX world simply do not have a choice about
what mail user agents they can use or of the mail transport agent their
system uses.  A mail user agent is a program the user uses to generate
and to read mail.  A mail transport agent is a program used to transfer
prepared mail from system to system.

Either mail user agents, mail transport agents, or underlying operating
systems may impose limits on the length of lines.  These limits may seem
Draconian to some people; but they are facts of life to some users.

It is easy enough to type your text with line lengths less than 80
characters with carriage returns at the ends of the lines.  These
carriage returns are what some _word processing programs_ call hard stops.

The use of paragraph length lines is Draconian to user whom may not be
able to such long lines.

The use of line lengths of less than 80 characters simply is good manners.

Randolph J. Herber, herber@dcdrjh.fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966,
CD/OSS/CDF CDF-PK-149F Mail Stop 318
Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500.
(Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.)
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