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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:09:30 +0200
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From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Lars_Hellstr=F6m?= <Lars.Hellstrom@RESIDENSET.NET>
Subject: Re: template vs template-alt
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
In-Reply-To:  <122D1D66-1300-424C-9FBC-11C0B0CCB6C9@gmail.com>
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Status: R

Will Robertson skrev:
> Discussion:
> 
> 1.  Despite the large increase in verbosity (doubling the line count), I 
> think I like splitting the defaults into separate keyvals. In fact, 
> after splitting defaults from the definition of the keys, it's no longer 
> clear to me whether defaults should be included within the template 
> definition at all.

Agreed. I recall from my own experiments (long ago) with template that 
the defaults-in-definitions were troublesome. I think I ended up not 
using them at all.

> 2.  If template-alt is going to auto-detect variables and set them 
> appropriately, perhaps it could do the same for functions.
> 
>        number-format      .set:N  = \caption_number_format:nn
> 
> could look at the signature of \caption_number_format:nn and use 
> \cs_set:Nn automagically, I think.

I'm generally not keen on automagic stuff myself, but that's just me.

One remark without having looked at template-alt in detail is however 
that the signatures above feel as though they're on the wrong side of 
the =. That there are two arguments is a property of number-format; you 
need to know this when providing a value for this parameter. The :N 
signature rather seems like it applies to the implementation, the 
details of which are otherwise in the right hand side.

Lars Hellström