Message-ID:  <8629.1299597054@cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date:         Tue, 8 Mar 2011 15:10:54 +0000
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From: Robin Fairbairns <Robin.Fairbairns@CL.CAM.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: format?
To: LATEX-L@listserv.uni-heidelberg.de
In-Reply-To:  Your message of Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:24:13 -0500. 
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Status: R

Bruno Le Floch <blflatex@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> A plea for slow computers: I don't know how much having a format will
> accelerate loading, but I guess that adding tikz would be too much.

in the case of pgf/tikz, the acceleration will be enormous, i would
imagine.  (i don't do pictures any more, but the pgf/tikz tree on the
archive makes me feel slightly faint.)

however, there _is_ mylatexformat, and anyone may build their own format
for their own work.  a latex3 format is one thing.  a latex3 format
that's good for everyone's requirements is going to take as long as
context has since it started, i would guess.

personally, i wouldn't add anything to it, beyond the replacements for
the functionality of current latex (excepting, of course, the extensions
-- coffins, most recently -- that we discuss here.

so i would be sympathetic to fontspec and unicode-math, but sceptical of
many other things that have been suggested here.

> Perhaps the {trace} package (although it seems included in l3chk, but
> not loaded by expl3?)?

however, i _can_ see the rationale of that...

robin