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Sender:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
Frank Mittelbach <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 11 Feb 2001 18:57:48 +0100
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Reply-To:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
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Marcel,

 > LaTeX is what most people use.  TeX just "magically gets installed"
 > when they install LaTeX.  People will use whatever LaTeX uses.

first of all you are unfortunately wrong in that respect. a lot of people do
not want to see any change especially if they don't see immediate benefits for
themselves and if that happens to be the majority ...

the switch to 2e was a very valuable and sad lession in this respect.

anyway this wouldn't or shouldn't mean you can't change but you have to be
careful because if you create a dead product that is not very helpful either.

example: i would nevery base (at the current moment) anything on
primitives available in eTeX because it would wipe out the majority of users
who wouldn't know how to use etex even if available under their nose (ie
within their distribution).

the main reason for not doing so is that it would only be beneficial for me as
a programmer and not beneficial for the user (noticable enough)

but more importantly and that is my second point or the point i tried to make:
LaTeX should "work" on TeX as a platform. so if i would build the kernel in a
way that this is not possible then people would not go with LaTeX not for a
long time.

frank

ps but all this has nothing really to do with how the LICR should or could
look like (only with a number of restrictions posed onto the methods when
implementing it)

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