X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1671" "Fri" "4" "December" "1998" "20:05:50" "+0100" "Hans Aberg" "haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE" nil "31" "Re: What is \"base\" LaTeX" "^Date:" nil nil "12" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.1]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA21786; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:09:55 +0100 (MET) Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de (192.88.97.2) by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <5.8474B1D6@listserv.gmd.de>; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:09:52 +0100 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 411607 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:09:41 +0100 Received: from mail0.nada.kth.se (mail0.nada.kth.se [130.237.222.70]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA29201 for ; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:09:30 +0100 (MET) Received: from [130.237.37.54] (sl34.modempool.kth.se [130.237.37.54]) by mail0.nada.kth.se (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA14822 for ; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:09:21 +0100 (MET) X-Sender: su95-hab@mail.nada.kth.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-ID: Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: <199812041356.IAA12575@hilbert.math.albany.edu> Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:05:50 +0100 From: Hans Aberg Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: What is "base" LaTeX Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 3043 At 08:56 -0500 1998/12/04, William F. Hammond wrote: >About macros: your whole point of view here changes when you realize >what you could be authoring. Not only might you want to think about >the paper target as an end format, but you also might want to think >about the www target, the cataloging target, the making of provision >for clipping segments into sophisticated processors (e.g., if MathML >is a target), and who knows what else ultimately. In writing for >multiple presentation formats it is highly desirable to avoid >target-conscious bifurcation (such as one sees occasionally in >Texinfo). The handling of different target presentation formats is >done by processors. Before any serious processing is done your macros >need to be fully expanded. (We don't see that expansion with our eyes >when using TeX-based systems.) The way I see it, this is what really drives the development of an authoring language capable of describing more structure: When authoring a manuscript with potential multiple uses, one should never produce several different specialized copies, as it is difficult to keep them consistent. The macro based systems are in this respect inferior, as it is unclear what the structure is: Is before, during or after expansion? What about the syntactic information that authors normally use? What about other contextual information? So this will eventually force the devlopment of more advanced authoring languages. Hans Aberg * Email: Hans Aberg * Home Page: * AMS member listing: