"Robin Fairbairns" <[log in to unmask]>, 28.10.2010 13:54:02
>Uwe Lueck  wrote:
>> This also reminds me of memoir.cls, "endorsing" (copying) certain
>> "standard" packages; yet I have never studied by which commands the
>> features of those packages are accessed by the user. 
>
> memoir uses the code of packages that peter wilson wrote as he was
> designing ... memoir.  i don't think i would have spotted the purpose of
> the packages if peter hadn't occasionally mentioned it when submitting
> packages.

In the first instance, once I learnt it from Lars Madsen. Now I have found 
patchcmd, (on searching for ` package ': ) array, dcolumn, delarray, 
tabularx, booktabs. I also once found the special footnote styles 
according to TeXbook pp. 395ff., probably from EDMAC via ledmac.  

The latter is a real gain because ledmac itself has turned out to be 
incompatible with a number of standard packages (due to its method 
of numbering lines, I think) -- and moreover, the "columnar" footnote 
style isn't available from manyfoot.

> as a development strategy, it seems quite neat, to me ... but it does
> make faq answer-writing a little tortuous: "you can use memoir or
> koma-script or package x, y or z to do this; package y is actually part
> of memoir".

When I learnt this about memoir, I found it remarkable as I had been 
urged to create such an "all-in-one-package" earlier (I didn't).

Cheers, 

    Uwe.