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Subject:
From:
Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:03:27 +0200
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Will Robertson a écrit :
> On 11/08/2009, at 10:27 PM, Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard wrote:
> 
>> 1. Concerning the terminology of "functions". Maybe it's worth mentioning
>> at some point that the word function is used in opposition to variable, not
>> to macro: theses two objects (functions and variables) remain actually 
>> macros, and TeX a macro language (like make or C preprocessor as opposed to
>> C).
>
> Except that variables really are sometimes variables, in the case of
> toks, counts, dims and so on.  However, you're right that our
> terminology is somewhat at odds with reality in places; this is
> something we should be addressing.
> 
By the way, I spend a few more time reading parts of source3 yesterday, and I'd
like to say that the terminology is quite comfortable to read. It sounds more
familiar to hear about functions and variables that about macros and macros.
OTOH (but this is really a personnal impression) I'm sometimes confused by the
use of "return".

IMO, it is certainly ok to keep the terminology, but adding warnings that
sometimes it doesn't actually fit the reality, but is only intended to simplify
reading. (Either a big general warning, or small foonotes in well-chosen places,
or both.)

Manuel.

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