Received: from mail.proteosys.com ([62.225.9.49]) by nummer-3.proteosys with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5329); Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:34:15 +0200 Received: by mail.proteosys.com (8.12.9/8.12.2) with ESMTP id h68AY8PP014441 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:34:14 +0200 Received: from listserv.uni-heidelberg.de (listserv.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.100.27]) by relay2.uni-heidelberg.de (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h68ARoGl008184; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:27:50 +0200 (MET DST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C3453C.7A606D80" Received: from listserv (listserv.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.100.27]) by listserv.uni-heidelberg.de (8.12.3/8.12.3/SuSE Linux 0.6) with ESMTP id h681c0TP029100; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:27:41 +0200 Received: from LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8d) with spool id 0677 for LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:27:41 +0200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Received: from relay2.uni-heidelberg.de (relay2.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.210.211]) by listserv.uni-heidelberg.de (8.12.3/8.12.3/SuSE Linux 0.6) with ESMTP id h68ARfM9001355 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:27:41 +0200 Received: from birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie (c110-78.bas1.prp.dublin.eircom.net [159.134.110.78]) by relay2.uni-heidelberg.de (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h68ARcGl008126 for ; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 12:27:39 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id h689SMBq001627; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 10:28:22 +0100 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) id h689SKOq001625; Tue, 8 Jul 2003 10:28:20 +0100 In-Reply-To: <16138.9008.870309.967543@zarniwoop.ms25.local> Organization: School of Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin References: <3F075002.72955C93@MartinHensel.de> <3F09CB24.7195F5E7@MartinHensel.de> <16138.9008.870309.967543@zarniwoop.ms25.local> Return-Path: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 08 Jul 2003 10:34:16.0743 (UTC) FILETIME=[7B6A6370:01C3453C] User-Agent: KMail/1.4.3 x-mime-autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by listserv.uni-heidelberg.de id h68ARfM9001356 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.28 (www . roaringpenguin . com / mimedefang) X-Spam-Score: -32.2 () EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION,IN_REP_TO,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES,REPLY_WITH_QUOTES,USER_AGENT_KMAIL Content-class: urn:content-classes:message Subject: Re: Invitation for discussion: My suggestion for a LaTeX3 syntax Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 10:28:19 +0100 Message-ID: A<200307081028.19280.tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: Re: Invitation for discussion: My suggestion for a LaTeX3 syntax Thread-Index: AcNFPHuKkxnBRCR9RGeUuKdZXOaKuQ== From: "Timothy Murphy" To: Reply-To: "Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project" Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 4658 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------_=_NextPart_001_01C3453C.7A606D80 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tuesday 08 July 2003 02:49, Reinhard Kotucha wrote: > Believe me, I know where beginners have problems. Noone had problems > with spaces, they can use any feature described in a book. I agree completely. The whole basis for the proposal -- that students find LaTeX syntax difficult -- is entirely misconceived. A student who can prove the Implicit Function Theorem is unlikely to be baffled by the (not very difficult) rule about spaces after \commands. In so far as students have objections to LaTeX it is on the grounds that it is not WYSIWYG, and therefore appears old-fashioned. (I'm not saying that I agree with that argument; just that it is what a certain percentage of students feel, and say.) Incidentally, not only is this proposal misconceived, but in my opinion so are most of the proposals for modifying TeX put forward by our masters -- most of these proposals are intended to answer problems which never actually arise in real life, but are products of the fevered imaginations of people whose time would be better spent studying Sanskrit. Knuth was right 99.9% of the time. -- Timothy Murphy e-mail: tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-86-233 6090 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland ------_=_NextPart_001_01C3453C.7A606D80 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Re: Invitation for discussion: My suggestion for a LaTeX3 = syntax

On Tuesday 08 July 2003 02:49, Reinhard Kotucha = wrote:

> Believe me, I know where beginners have = problems.  Noone had problems
> with spaces, they can use any feature described = in a book.

I agree completely.
The whole basis for the proposal --
that students find LaTeX syntax difficult --
is entirely misconceived.

A student who can prove the Implicit Function = Theorem
is unlikely to be baffled by the (not very difficult) = rule
about spaces after \commands.

In so far as students have objections to LaTeX
it is on the grounds that it is not WYSIWYG,
and therefore appears old-fashioned.
(I'm not saying that I agree with that = argument;
just that it is what a certain percentage of students = feel, and say.)

Incidentally, not only is this proposal = misconceived,
but in my opinion so are most of the proposals for = modifying TeX
put forward by our masters --
most of these proposals are intended to answer = problems
which never actually arise in real life,
but are products of the fevered imaginations
of people whose time would be better spent
studying Sanskrit.

Knuth was right 99.9% of the time.


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail: tim@birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-233 6090
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, = Dublin 2, Ireland

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