Received: from mx0.gmx.net (mx0.gmx.net [213.165.64.100]) by h1439878.stratoserver.net (8.14.2/8.14.2/Debian-2build1) with SMTP id p06IDtCe021589 for ; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:13:56 +0100 Received: (qmail 2495 invoked by alias); 6 Jan 2011 18:13:50 -0000 Delivered-To: GMX delivery to rainer.schoepf@gmx.net Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 06 Jan 2011 18:13:49 -0000 Received: from relay2.uni-heidelberg.de (EHLO relay2.uni-heidelberg.de) [129.206.210.211] by mx0.gmx.net (mx109) with SMTP; 06 Jan 2011 19:13:49 +0100 Received: from listserv.uni-heidelberg.de (listserv.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.100.94]) by relay2.uni-heidelberg.de (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id p06IC9am011531 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:12:09 +0100 Received: from listserv.uni-heidelberg.de (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by listserv.uni-heidelberg.de (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id p06FGB4C001194; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:12:07 +0100 Received: by LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 16.0) with spool id 806566 for LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:12:07 +0100 Received: from relay2.uni-heidelberg.de (relay2.uni-heidelberg.de [129.206.210.211]) by listserv.uni-heidelberg.de (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id p06IC7uK021335 for ; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:12:07 +0100 Received: from moutng.kundenserver.de (moutng.kundenserver.de [212.227.17.9]) by relay2.uni-heidelberg.de (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id p06IC2K5011481 for ; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:12:06 +0100 Received: from morse.mittelbach-online.de (p3EE3E158.dip.t-dialin.net [62.227.225.88]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (node=mreu2) with ESMTP (Nemesis) id 0M36tX-1QQX012Tcl-00sTKu; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 19:12:02 +0100 Received: by morse.mittelbach-online.de (Postfix, from userid 501) id 7C7F670F29; Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:11:59 +0100 (CET) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <1713005794.1189899.1293724895711.JavaMail.fmail@mwmweb012> <19749.63653.743551.563511@morse.mittelbach-online.de> <743624.60246.qm@web82001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-Mailer: VM 7.19 under Emacs 21.3.1 X-Provags-ID: V02:K0:O0odDttx2CAvrBt6PEIoCzodR10uBUJ8l1SRLs0HSpx slehUuecAJdZ/INjAjx7YRwHDA/sKtkqrGhh9t0a0bM44bQNkm OI+Jb4LV88eApDnBTMSGJEqgNR0Ti7m+UPfNuI+7CCfSsQNQtC K6Z4heFVHJDFehoKynuEhQ4BY8u8/geHtLwNOnE3Ca0lUuCbJ7 VHyW59JRc884nD9w5B2Vg== X-Spam-Whitelist-Provider: Message-ID: <19750.1519.122559.885344@morse.mittelbach-online.de> Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2011 19:11:59 +0100 Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project From: Frank Mittelbach Subject: Re: variable opt arg delimiters [was: Defining a ...] To: LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de In-Reply-To: <743624.60246.qm@web82001.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Precedence: list List-Help: , List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Owner: List-Archive: X-GMX-Antispam: 0 (Mail was not recognized as spam); Detail=5D7Q89H36p4WX0t+AtsdW2ORvUlAfcdSq7Ahyg4C/fk7uuW7VuLVQU/9lW10ossSdvlhN z8xOsZQmz6lK//XukZpQf+GHV514iXQTqOmrbPxi/MhtqVdVO5VGaIs2lRHYXuG9wnlvtUE16PjJ LYzvA==V1; X-Resent-By: Forwarder X-Resent-For: rainer.schoepf@gmx.net X-Resent-To: rainer@rainer-schoepf.de Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 6542 Paul Thompson writes: > The optional argument thing could be better handled by using named arguments. > So, for \parbox, which has optional and mandatory arguments, we currently have > > > \parbox[pos][height][inner-pos]{width}{text} > > This is mindlessly confusing in many cases. Why not have > > \parbox{pos=t,height=something,innerpos=t,width=something}{text} > > > The use of named arguments is vastly superior to positional arguments, > especially when optional arguments can be specified. ah, the old argument between verbosity an ability to remember. Don't get me wrong, I side with you on that one Paul, but there are times where I prefer either. In any case this is one of the reasons why we worked hard on separating the different layers so that a clean replacement of top-level syntax is always being possible and easy. In that respect xparse is nothing other than providing one such interface (resembling the LaTeX2e one, but generalized) as an example, but it was never meant at "the interface" for a future LaTeX But it is, in my opinion, a good start while everything is happening on top of the 2e context anyway. and for a while at least this is where the expl language and anything built from it will live. frank