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Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
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In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Fri, 27 Nov 1998 13:46:46 +0330." 
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Date:         Sat, 28 Nov 1998 12:03:27 +0000
From: Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns@CL.CAM.AC.UK>
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
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Subject:      Re: What is "base" LaTeX
Status: R

Roozbeh Pournader wrote (in response to my comment about
documentation):

> I sometimes compare LaTeX to Microsoft Word. And I can't forget reading
> about how to cut and paste everywhere in the help. What do you exactly mean
> by documentation?

you're not the first who didn't quite `get' what i was meaning.  i
guess i had better be more explicit.

to a large extent, i think latex is well-served for basic
documentation: it's a bit scattered about (lamport/whoever and
usrguide) and one or two things are missing (like some of the accent
commands) but it's a solid foundation.

however, for the user who needs more than the core can offer, we only
have the latex companion (which is wildly out of date) and more
recently the latex graphics companion.

package writers tend _not_ to document their work well enough: it's a
tricky job --- i find things needed in my biggest package's (footmisc)
documentation every time i prepare a new release.

a new edition of the companion, and a blitz on package documentation
would be very useful indeed...

note: i'm making no statement about the potential market, or who might
be able to find the time to do the job.  i merely state that life
would become slightly easier if the documentation in this area were
a bit better.

robin