Thread-Topic: [REQ] "TeX: Rejoining the mainstream" - comments requested
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References: Your message of Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:44:58 +0100. 
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Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:21:38 +0100
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From: "J.Fine" <J.Fine@OPEN.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: [REQ] "TeX: Rejoining the mainstream" - comments requested
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
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Status: R

Hello Robin

Thanks for spotting the typo with Nicola Talbot.  Now fixed in TeX source (but not PDF yet).

No, it's not LaTeX's fault that 'fi' ligature becomes page break.  It's because TeX is only 8-bit, and predates Unicode.

I don't see what you mean by saying that
===
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Achievements of \LaTeX{} (the first fifteen years)}

\begin{itemize}
\item Provides styles (aka classes) for standard documents
\item Open: Allows programmers to add their own style files
\item Provides reasonably uniform document syntax
\item Lamport's \LaTeX{} book provides gentle introduction
\item Attracted energies of many talented developers
\item Used and respected by many academics
\item Adopted as submission format by many publishers
\item \LaTeX2e an important clean-up and revision of \LaTeX209
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
===
is faint praise.   Please suggest changes, if you think I'm being unfair.

LaTeX, ConTeXt and MathTran would all benefit from online documentation.  O hope we can set up something we can share.

Apologies for not quoting properly - I'm using web access.

Jonathan


________________________________________
From: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project [LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE] On Behalf Of Robin Fairbairns [Robin.Fairbairns@CL.CAM.AC.UK]
Sent: 27 August 2009 20:07
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
Subject: Re: [REQ] "TeX: Rejoining the mainstream" - comments requested

J.Fine <J.Fine@OPEN.AC.UK> wrote:

> I've added a new slide (page 6)
>     Achievements of LATEX (the first fifteen years)

damning by faint praise.

> By the way, when I pasted this title from the slide to this email, the
> two 'fi' ligatures were transferred as page breaks!

probably latex's fault.

> Here's the URL for the EuroTeX talk:
> <http://mathtran.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/mathtran/trunk/docs/mainstream_tex/eurotex2009.pdf>

i agree (with whichever of my colleagues it was) about the odd nature of
your comparison of latex 3 with plain tex.

what is it you have against numeric arguments?  i've never bothered
about it until the last weekend when i came across your complaints while
catching up with my mail.

> (Martin: Thank you for sending me off-list a definition for the XeTeX
> logo.  I found it ugly (the strong symmetry I found distracting), so I
> commented it out of the source.  I might change my mind about it
> later.)

i don't like it either; i suggested to jonathan kew that it ought to be
possible to do better, but he reckons it's no more changeable than the
ghastly tex and latex logos.

> Further comments are welcome!

you might try spelling nicola's name right -- i read it as a masculine
name before i realised who you're talking about.  the fact is that there
are myriad latex guides, tutorials and the like, on the web.  that you
can only think of a couple that are missing is pretty remarkable, imo.

i must get back to my latex-leaning documentation work...

it would be nice to find people with the skills and the money to build
something as good as context-garden, for latex.  beyond me, for sure :-(

robin


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