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Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
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In-Reply-To:  Your message of "Wed, 02 Dec 1998 12:58:12 +0100." 
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Date:         Wed, 2 Dec 1998 12:17:48 +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

> At 11:23 +0000 1998/12/02, Robin Fairbairns wrote:
> >> I think the use of TeX is expanding: It is not only the standard in math,
> >> but also pretty much at the XXX archive, and in many quarters of computer
> >> science.
> >
> >i see no actual sign that use of tex is expanding.  i even see
> >students around here using word for theoretical computer science
> >(which is maths that somehow doesn't want to speak its name ;-)...
>
> I guess you only see what is expanding the fastest. (I do not see that
> students have a great need for TeX either -- did they ever have that in the
> past?) Nevertheless, I do not see that those uses of TeX will be replaced
> very quickly by something *ML that cannot do the job.

the majority of phd students here still do their dissertations in
latex (characteristically awful latex, but there you are...).

a goodly proportion of undergraduates do final year project
dissertations that way, too.  (although they often produce better
latex since they don't have as much time to invent awful habits.)

i see no reason why a *ml "that can't do the job" would be inhibited
from encroaching.  not doing the job hasn't stopped word, after all...

robin