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Subject:
From:
Ken Smith <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 22 Jul 2003 08:43:01 +1000
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Torsten Bronger <[log in to unmask]> wrote on
Fri, 18 Jul 2003 23:59:34 +0200

> Halloechen!

> Boris Veytsman <[log in to unmask]> writes:

> > JS> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 03:16:32 +0200
> > JS> From: Joachim Schrod <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> >
> > JS>  -- Actually, IMO the main disadvantage of TeX markup is the
> > JS>  shortage of skillfull people in the job market to implement that
> > JS>  markup.  That makes any manager worth his salary shy away from
> > JS>  TeX. For me, that's the main reason to use XML, I find more
> > JS>  people with the needed skills.
> >
> > This brings the question, which I hope is NOT off topic here. Why is
> > the situatoion on the job market so skewed? I personally find TeX
> > markup much more "natural" and easy than XML -- why do most people
> > think otherwise?

> It's very very difficult to parse arbitrary TeX.  And it is very
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> difficult for authors to use a clearly defined subset of (La)TeX
> that a certain parser could understand -- everybody wants to
> "improve" the output with own fancy structures.

I don't know whether it's still around on the Net somewhere, but
several years ago someone posted a file named xii.tex
When processed under plain TeX it output the familiar "Twelve Days of
Christmas".
But the author, whose name I've forgotten but was a well-known
TeXpert, had managed to conceal all this under a maze of obscurity.

Anyone wanting to try their hand at writing something to parse TeX
should see how their program works on xii.tex

[rest deleted]

> Tschoe,
> Torsten.

> --
> Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus

Ken Smith
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