>  >  b) please lets have portable programs written in the genuinely
 >  >     popular langauges, viz TeX or C++
 >
 > Ha ha, I think Sebastian omitted a couple of smilies.
no, i was serious for once. TeX is ok, in this context, but once we go
outside that, its C++ or Java, please. If Phil Taylor is listening and
says `WEB!' I shall scream (silently)

 > Specials aside, dviconcat works well at the level of combining dvi
unfortunately, dviconcat is widely unavailable. its a pig to compile
even under Unix, and I have never seen it elsewhere

 > files.  But combining TeX or LaTeX source files is still not so easy.
 > Publishers will come up with their own solutions.  (Perhaps Sebastian
 > can inform us about Elsevier practice.)  Let's work towards some

what do you have in mind? N articles being combined into one journal
issue? Robin Fairbairns was working on that for TUGboat, and
Matt (where is he now?) Swift discussed in some detail a few years
ago.

Elsevier, for what its worth, combines articles at the printing level:-}

sebastian