On Thu, Jan 23, 2003 at 11:49:20PM +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:

> [...]
> In all the acres of argumentation you've propounded on the topic
> you have never -- as far as I am aware --
> produced a single LaTeX file which would be better --
> more easily, more elegantly --
> processed by elatex than latex.

I can give you two packages as example, (hopefully more uptodate
than my last one):

* pdfcolmk.sty: it tries to simulate the missing color stack
  of pdfTeX by the help of TeX's marks mechanism.
  TeX code: 30 lines, 66 commands
    TeX has only one mark register, so basic commands has to be
    redefined (\mark, ...) to implement a sharing of information
    between different applications (strings by \chaptermark,
    \sectionmark, \markboth, ..., and data of package pdfcolmk).
    So I expect that this package can and will be incompatible with
    other packages that also uses this mark register.
  eTeX code: 4 lines, 14 commands
    With eTeX an extra marks register can be allocated, so
    different mark applications does not disturb each other
    and I expect no problems with other packages.

* alphalph.sty:
  TeX-code: 95 lines, 11 definitions
  eTeX-code: 22 lines, 2 definitions
    very fast and easy to implement by using \numexpr.

Yours sincerely
  Heiko <[log in to unmask]>