References: Your message of "Fri, 16 Oct 1998 22:21:42 +0200." 
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Date:         Sat, 17 Oct 1998 13:05:58 +0200
From: Hans Aberg <haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE>
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
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Subject:      Re: Users dropping into TeX
Status: R

At 11:49 +0100 98/10/17, Robin Fairbairns wrote:
>latex's syntax has a little bit of regularity, a little bit of block
>structure, ..., but all told it's so uneven that it's silly to imagine
>`formally' specifying it.

  Whatever, it is important one makes up one's mind and make that explicit.

>added to which, the extreme difficult of faulting tex primitives,
>etc., that fall outside the scope of the syntax makes the utility of
>such a specification doubtful.

  I have noted that some tools, such as spell-checkers, are dependant on a
LaTeX syntax (not working properly if using merely PlainTeX).

  Hans Aberg
                  * Email: Hans Aberg <mailto:haberg@member.ams.org>
                  * Home Page: <http://www.matematik.su.se/~haberg/>
                  * AMS member listing: <http://www.ams.org/cml/>