Bernd Raichle <[log in to unmask]> writes: > This was postponed for e-TeX because (a) the implementation will be > rather tricky for e.g., special nodes and in some contexts where the > result of real arithmetic can be accessed (e.g., \accent > constructions) which will lead to implementation dependend > behaviour. It is my opinion that all of Knuth's attempt to hide the result of real arithmetic in TeX are just a source of pain, trouble and quirkiness, and should stop being a design criterion. It also affects the output of the trip test, making it system-dependent. There are two approaches to get there: either just ignore the system dependencies (PostScript more or less does that, I think, and has not terribly suffered from it), or replace all occurences of real arithmetic by fixed-point arithmetic, and be done. There are change files for that purpose already, if I remember correctly: it was shown that this was feasible. And indeed, given the rather limited amount of real arithmetic in TeX, it should be much easier to make it real-free than its cousin Metafont which managed this feat in spite of _much_ more involved calculations. The inability to access set glue is a _major_ roadblock for quite a few applications. -- David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum