X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1860" "Wed" "22" "October" "1997" "11:44:19" "+0200" "Hans Aberg" "haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE" nil "39" "LaTeX Syntax (Was: \\@ifdefinable)" "^Date:" nil nil "10" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.1]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA30217; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:48:37 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <10.E44490E5@listserv.gmd.de>; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:48:35 +0200 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 220375 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:48:25 +0200 Received: from insanus.matematik.su.se (root@insanus.matematik.su.se [130.237.198.12]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA14949 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:48:21 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from [130.237.37.76] (sl101.modempool.kth.se [130.237.37.127]) by insanus.matematik.su.se (8.8.7/8.6.9) with ESMTP id KAA18638 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 10:48:17 +0100 (MET) X-Address: Department of Mathematics, Stockholm University S-106 91 Stockholm SWEDEN X-Phone: int+46 8 162000 X-Fax: int+46 8 6126717 X-Url: http://www.matematik.su.se X-Sender: su95-hab@mail.nada.kth.se References: (message from Hans Aberg on Mon, 20 Oct 1997 19:30:59 +0200) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-ID: Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:44:19 +0200 From: Hans Aberg Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: LaTeX Syntax (Was: \@ifdefinable) Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 2500 >Hans writes. > I think the LaTeX parameter style \newcommand[6]... is pointless. Should > it not be scrapped in LaTeX3, only be allowed in compatibility mode? > >You need to differentiate between commands aimed at document use, and >general latex programmers interface. > >In documents, not allowing arbitrary argument syntax is one of the >great strengths of LaTeX. It is one of the things that allows latex >documents to be parsed by non-tex engines such as latex2html, >techexplorer, Scientific Word etc. Figuring out the argument to >\vspace is a whole lot easier than figuring out the argument to >\vskip. > >Of course at a programming level one needs to use arbitrary TeX >delimited arguments, eg for parsing comma separated lists, or key >value pairs or whatever. However one could imagine a sufficiently rich >`programmers interface' which gave access to such constructs without >needing to do the most basic TeX macro expansion tricks that you >unfortunately need to do to code things for the present system. This makes only sense if the syntax LaTeX is published and official, and not only used as an internal guiding line for LaTeX developers. Nut this relates to a discussion we had before here, about improved syntax for math writing: I really think that a better syntax would help mathematical authoring. I use it myself. For example, one can use name overloading, so that $\Obj(C)$ may mean the objects in the category C (which also selects the appropriate style for C), whereas $\Obj$ would just be the symbol used to denote objects, used in indices, and so on. So now you are saying that tools that are supposed to simplify LaTeX authoring, in fact may make it more difficult... Hans Aberg * Email: Hans Aberg * AMS member listing: