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Sender:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
Roozbeh Pournader <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 9 Nov 1998 15:12:04 +0330
Reply-To:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
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On Mon, 9 Nov 1998 Sebastian Rahtz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> why dont you write
>
>  <client id="boyera">some stuff</client>
>
> and process it with a DSSSL or XSL style sheet, which could target the
> screen, paper (using TeX) or an audio renderer?

Ok, I'll try, but will mass users be able to use them? Are splendid quality
free renderers available for poor students using Linux? (or even rich ones
using Win95?) I think TeX society should not go under indirect supervision
of ISO, W3C, etc. because there will come some time that one considers
charging, then major industries will pay, no problem, but smaller ones,
and also students must forget everything (remember GIF and CompuServe?)

> TeX is a typesetting engine, pretty damn good it is too. i want to use
> it, does most of what i want. i don't care what its input is, because I
> dont want to write it, i want a computer to write it for me, based on
> my abstract text, and my stylesheet. Lamport LaTeX is a system that does that
> for me, and very well it has served me, but now i want better. so i
> turn to XML and its style sheets, to replace *Lamport LaTeX*. Knuth's TeX
> itself stays underneath, untouched as it always was. what *LaTeX 3*
> might do as an intermediate layer is less clear.

Aha! I understood it. But why are you trying to convert LaTeX to another
engine? Why not doing this kind of work with TeX himself (!), and have
smaller load and more speed?

Also, I want to ask, ``Exactly how do you want your computer to do the
writing for you?''

As my point of view, I think that there is no winner in the race between
generic markup and visual markup which you can see as the difference
between ``quoted'' and \quote{quoted}. Some authors will prefer this and some
that. The real point is that I want my input to be as readable as possible,
and also, as portable as possible. You can't imagine, an end user really
prefers the \texttt command to become somehow shorter. (Don't blame me
saying she must say \gnat, since she doesn't listen. She is only preparing
her homework, she says. :)

I, as a TeX programmer, also want the programming interface, more
powerful and easier, and considering experimental L3PL, I am very hopeful.

--Roozbeh

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