Message-ID:  <199808122232.PAA05747@math.uci.edu>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
Date:         Wed, 12 Aug 1998 15:32:32 -0700
From: Marcel Oliver <moliver@MATH.UCI.EDU>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
Subject:      Re: Space and Time (was: Modules)
Status: R

Martin Schroeder wrote:
> Even today the _cheapest_ available PC has a P5/200 with 32MB RAM and 2GB HD.
> When L3 will be available(2y+?), this will certainly be the standard PC in
> use; the cheapest to buy will run at 500MHz++. And we'll all be able to use
> BIGGGTeX. :-)
>
> I don't think we should be concerned much about TeXs main memory or
> processing speed -- there will be plenty.

I disagree.  I believe somewhere in the long-term development of TeX
and/or LaTeX one has to come to a point were visual markup decisions
(page breaks, float placement, maybe even parshapes) can be done
within some GUI and are clearly separated from the logical markup
which is best done in a traditional text editor (thus, getting rid of
ugly things like float placement parameters, \addtopage, \clearpage
etc.) in the .tex file.

This requires a sufficiently fast TeX engine to be useful---the
avarage PC is now coming into this range.  So I don't think it would
be a good idea to throw away performance unless it is compensated by a
clear and major gain in non-performance issues.  This performance may
be desperately needed in future development of LaTeX which is not yet
forseen.

Just my thoughts on this...

Marcel