Torsten Bronger <[log in to unmask]> wrote on Fri, 18 Jul 2003 23:59:34 +0200 > Halloechen! > Boris Veytsman <[log in to unmask]> writes: > > JS> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 03:16:32 +0200 > > JS> From: Joachim Schrod <[log in to unmask]> > > > > > > JS> -- Actually, IMO the main disadvantage of TeX markup is the > > JS> shortage of skillfull people in the job market to implement that > > JS> markup. That makes any manager worth his salary shy away from > > JS> TeX. For me, that's the main reason to use XML, I find more > > JS> people with the needed skills. > > > > This brings the question, which I hope is NOT off topic here. Why is > > the situatoion on the job market so skewed? I personally find TeX > > markup much more "natural" and easy than XML -- why do most people > > think otherwise? > It's very very difficult to parse arbitrary TeX. And it is very ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > difficult for authors to use a clearly defined subset of (La)TeX > that a certain parser could understand -- everybody wants to > "improve" the output with own fancy structures. I don't know whether it's still around on the Net somewhere, but several years ago someone posted a file named xii.tex When processed under plain TeX it output the familiar "Twelve Days of Christmas". But the author, whose name I've forgotten but was a well-known TeXpert, had managed to conceal all this under a maze of obscurity. Anyone wanting to try their hand at writing something to parse TeX should see how their program works on xii.tex [rest deleted] > Tschoe, > Torsten. > -- > Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus Ken Smith [log in to unmask]