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Subject:
From:
Robin Fairbairns <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 8 Oct 1997 09:26:22 +0100
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Hans Aberg writes (quoting Barbara Beeton):

> >and there are still articles submitted in plain tex, which tugboat
> >is not going to refuse if the material is relevant and well written.
> >in fact, as some such articles propose non-latex solutions, it may
> >be impossible to process them at all using latex.

This is (a) in the nature of things and (b) as it should be (IMHO,
anyway: I wouldn't enjoy reading a TUB paper that said "here are some
macros to do in plain something that LaTeX people take for granted").

Barbara went on to deplore the fact that she/we can't any longer (in
our brave new LaTeX world) run a whole issue in one pass through TeX.
In fact, since I've joined the production team, there have been
articles that required us to build an extended TeX, or to hack at
standard macros, to get them to run on their own.

Hans remarked:

>   I suggested LaTeX should have a PlainTeX class, so that could
> conveniently migrate from PlainTeX to LaTeX...

There's a perfectly good plain.sty, which David Carlisle updates
whenever something new proves to be necessary.  A class really isn't
the right thing, since classes are there to implement document
designs, and the very essence of plain is that it *doesn't* impose a
document design.

In the TUGboat instance, in fact, implementation of a version of its
`plain' macro set for use within a LaTeX framework is another ambition
I'd rather given up on.  If there were enough hours in the day, I
might give it another pass, but unfortunately...

Robin

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