On 04/08/2009, at 4:37 PM, Joseph Wright wrote:

>> [*] I'm starting to doubt I'll ever manage a transition to l3names,
>> myself... Sure, some parts are really nifty, but other parts seem  
>> bent
>> on establishing a computational model for LaTeX that I'm not quite
>> comfortable with.
>
> I guess this very much depends what you want to achieve. For what I'm
> working on, I need lots of higher-level stuff such as loops,  
> comparisons
> and the like. It's at that level that LaTeX3 is useful to me, as I can
> use the built-in ones rather than code them myself.


I could not agree more.
I would like to hope that the expl3 code gets to a state such that we  
don't continue to see new packages on CTAN for performing basic high- 
level "stuff". Just the other day we saw boolexpr, and there are  
several string or token comparison packages. And there are several  
looping packages, as well, I think. More famously, etoolbox attempts  
similar goals as expl3 in a more familiar (but IMHO sometimes more  
cryptic) way.

I'm certainly not saying that the authors of such packages shouldn't  
be doing what they're doing, but if it's doubling development time for  
their other packages (which perform actual tasks, rather than  
nuts'n'bolts) then it would be nice to consolidate some of this  
material.

The fact that expl3 looks a bit strange probably doesn't exactly aid  
its adoption, but I think the (functional) benefits of the Hungarian- 
like notation outweigh the (marketing) drawbacks.

Will