Received: from webgate.proteosys.de (mail.proteosys-ag.com [62.225.9.49]) by lucy.proteosys (8.11.0/8.9.3/SuSE Linux 8.9.3-0.1) with ESMTP id f1KAUh108820 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:43 +0100 Received: by webgate.proteosys.de (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id f1KAUhd31431 . for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:43 +0100 Received: from mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (mailserver1.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE [134.93.8.30]) by mailgate2.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.11.0/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f1KAUgQ21174 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:42 +0100 (MET) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C09B28.2D74CB80" Received: from mailgate2.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (mailgate2.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE [134.93.8.57]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA01561 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:42 +0100 (MET) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Received: from mail.listserv.gmd.de (mail.listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.5]) by mailgate2.zdv.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.11.0/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f1KAUgQ21170 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:42 +0100 (MET) Received: from mail.listserv.gmd.de (192.88.97.5) by mail.listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <7.FFE14601@mail.listserv.gmd.de>; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:32 +0100 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 490831 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:38 +0100 Received: from ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (mail.urz.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.119.234]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA14690 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:36 +0100 (MET) Received: from relay.uni-heidelberg.de (relay.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.100.212]) by ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA57770 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:26 +0100 Received: from abel.math.umu.se (abel.math.umu.se [130.239.20.139]) by relay.uni-heidelberg.de (8.10.2+Sun/8.10.2) with ESMTP id f1KAUKx03387 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:20 +0100 (MET) Received: from [130.239.20.144] (mac144.math.umu.se [130.239.20.144]) by abel.math.umu.se (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id LAA26164 for ; Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:28:22 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: <14993.33536.859326.523832@istrati.zdv.uni-mainz.de> References: Return-Path: X-Sender: lars@abel.math.umu.se x-mime-autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de id LAA14691 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message Subject: Re: New template macro families Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:30:17 +0100 Message-ID: X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Lars_Hellstr=F6m?= Sender: "Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project" To: "Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L" Reply-To: "Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project" Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 3994 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C09B28.2D74CB80 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable At 21.33 +0100 2001-02-19, Frank Mittelbach wrote: >Lars, David > >I don't mind either way and happily leave the decision to David but one >question: > > > Compare with the case for the NFSS fontdef tokens. I understood the = meaning > > of e.g. \T1/pad/m/n/12 (when TeX was showling an hlist) the first = time I > > looked at it, but it took several months before I realised how = tricky it > > really was. > >how tricky was what? > >are you saying that the decision within NFSS was good or bad? I'm essentially saying that the decision was good, because I understood what that thingy meant (here we switch to font ...) without any understanding of the mechanisms behind it. (Here I mean in particular = that for each font, TeX keeps track of a fontdef token which selects that = font and uses it to represent a font switch when showing a horizontal list.) = In NFSS the slashes work fine because you made clear from the start (or so = is my impression) that NFSS attributes are alphanumeric (OK, maybe the = sizes can contain a period), but for keyvals you've already opened the door = for miscellaneous symbols by a frequent use of hyphens. As for splitting the names: You need to do a catcode change when = defining the macro that is to retrieve the parts of the names, and it's not (in complete generality, although probably yes in practice) possible to get = the parts right simply by expanding one macro, but with the current naming scheme there might not even be a unique identification of the name = parts. Lars Hellstr=F6m ------_=_NextPart_001_01C09B28.2D74CB80 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Re: New template macro families

At 21.33 +0100 2001-02-19, Frank Mittelbach = wrote:
>Lars, David
>
>I don't mind either way and happily leave the = decision to David but one
>question:
>
> > Compare with the case for the NFSS fontdef = tokens. I understood the meaning
> > of e.g. \T1/pad/m/n/12 (when TeX was = showling an hlist) the first time I
> > looked at it, but it took several months = before I realised how tricky it
> > really was.
>
>how tricky was what?
>
>are you saying that the decision within NFSS was = good or bad?

I'm essentially saying that the decision was good, = because I understood
what that thingy meant (here we switch to font ...) = without any
understanding of the mechanisms behind it. (Here I = mean in particular that
for each font, TeX keeps track of a fontdef token = which selects that font
and uses it to represent a font switch when showing a = horizontal list.) In
NFSS the slashes work fine because you made clear = from the start (or so is
my impression) that NFSS attributes are alphanumeric = (OK, maybe the sizes
can contain a period), but for keyvals you've already = opened the door for
miscellaneous symbols by a frequent use of = hyphens.

As for splitting the names: You need to do a catcode = change when defining
the macro that is to retrieve the parts of the names, = and it's not (in
complete generality, although probably yes in = practice) possible to get the
parts right simply by expanding one macro, but with = the current naming
scheme there might not even be a unique = identification of the name parts.

Lars Hellstr=F6m

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