> as delimiters in order to avoid the special treatment of spaces after > commands. ("It's really easy to forget to put in something like \ > after a control word. I promise you that you will do it at least once > while you're learning to use TeX." Doob: A Gentle Introduction to TeX) Agreed. And I promise you that you will do it now and then even if you are an experienced user. In a class I've written recently intended for new users, I added a \charname{name} to avoid this problem (ie, \charname{bullet} = {\textbullet}). I would note that &LaTeX; is not very readable and that <LaTeX/> is somewhat clumsy (XML does not allows <LaTeX>, which would be the most readable option). This is one of the interesting points of your proposal (which has some weak points, too). Let me say that your last e-mail is far more interesting than syntax.pdf because it explains the reasons of the syntax. If we become Tcl'ish with these [ ] is not, imo, the relevant point, but the motivations and some of the proposals (from a conceptual point of view). Javier