X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1402" "Wed" "16" "December" "1998" "11:45:14" "+0100" "Hans Aberg" "haberg@MATEMATIK.SU.SE" nil "36" "Re: portable 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 LAA08476; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 11:54:03 +0100 (MET) Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de (192.88.97.2) by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <2.0A06D017@listserv.gmd.de>; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 11:45:27 +0100 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 413283 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 11:45:24 +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 LAA18494 for ; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 11:45:12 +0100 (MET) Received: from [130.237.37.106] (sl80.modempool.kth.se [130.237.37.106]) by mail0.nada.kth.se (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA08018 for ; Wed, 16 Dec 1998 11:45:08 +0100 (MET) X-Sender: su95-hab@mail.nada.kth.se References: Your message of "Tue, 15 Dec 1998 22:16:20 +0100." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Message-ID: Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 11:45:14 +0100 From: Hans Aberg Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: portable LaTeX Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 3171 At 09:47 +0000 1998/12/16, Robin Fairbairns wrote: >hans aberg writes: > >> Well, speaking of an _authoring_ language, one would expect [...] >> >> So from this point of view, HTML and PDF and DVI are incomplete. > >umm, in iso 8613[*] terms, pdf and dvi are `final forms', the output >of a formatting process. pace various people's odd ideas, they are >not (as a practical proposition) intended to be edited. as authoring >languages they are complete crocks (though people do do daft things: i >have a friend who regularly writes bits of exam papers in >postscript...). Has anybody said anything different? >html is a `revisable form'. indeed, some people (such as i, who have >no other tools than emacs) author in it[*]. but it's an awful >authoring language, even with the sorts of dances i can persuade emacs >to do for me.... Right. >however, html _does_ in principle provide an awful lot of what one >might like. it fails in its lack of stable extensibility ... which is >what this crazy argument started from (but, shock horror, in terms of >latex's stability and extensibility). Right again: People use HTML as an authoring language, in the lack of the real thing. Hans Aberg * Email: Hans Aberg * Home Page: * AMS member listing: