Hallo! > > >> Is it widely used? > > > > Pass! There was an amazingly high hit rate on the web reference site > > when V1.1 was first announced, but as we have received no bug reports > > since then we cannot be sure whether e-TeX is bug-free or unused! > > i fear the answer is "mainly unused" and the reason is simply that > that for most people there is no use for it (right now) as they are > not programmers but users. I think, there are not many users right *now*. *But* there is the TeX-Live-CD version2, on which will be an e-TeX (or the announcement is a lie...) and the new version of teTeX (0.9) will have an e-TeX. There are quite a large number of people following *and* updating with this distribution. So I expect the number of people actually having e-TeX will be significantly rising in the *near future*. We can't help people only using LaTeX209 nowadays, so I don't care if they would or will switch... [support of e-TeX by L2e-team] > depends on what is the meaning of "support" here. > > if it means can one use LaTeX with e-tex and use any of the features > then surely one can. if it means does LaTeX use any features of e-tex > then surely no. But then, why did *you* (the L2e-team) ask for 256 \mark-register, not only 16? > it is very simple, if we would use any feature right now then 99.9% of > all LaTeX users would suddenly find that they can't use LaTeX any more > and would be forced to upgrade. So, yes: LaTeX must be compatible with 'normal TeX' for some time. Sure... > but they would not upgrade as there is no compelling reason for them > to do so as we can't produce any functionality right now that would be > considered by the majority of users a good reason to switch to the new > system. what we can do is produce better and simpler code as some > things do work much nicer with e-tex functionality but this is nothing > a user cares if the result is the same (or mostly the same on his/her > level). Oh, I don't know, if I should agree here. There are some users, who would be happy about more stability and less bugs in L2e. It may be a small number, but there *are* users who complain to me that one bug in the L2e database is suspended and not fixed. I don't see that this bug could be easily fixed and since there is a workaround, I told them: Be happy with that, the L2e-team has more important stuff to do and besides, you haven't paid for it, so don't complain about unfixed bugs... > so it doesn't make sense for us to switch 2e onto e-tex and if our > core is on tex then we can't do development that could be released as > packages using e-tex either. if we would do this then we would work > for nearly nobody and for a long time none of our developments would > be tested or used. That's silly: 'We don't waste our times for e-TeX-L2e-packages. So there *is* no reason to switch. So noone switches. So we don't waste our times for e-TeX-L2e-packages.' Sure, there must be two L2e-codes: the compatibility-code and the more stable e-TeX-code for features available in both versions... And there can be packages only working with e-TeX, because it is too difficult (or impossible) in normal TeX (this mainly for future versions of e-TeX). > in my opinion a combination of etex and omega (and pdf support) > however could be the answer at least it seems to me a very good case. Ok, I will tell you the problem with Omega: Mr. Plaice told it: He doesn't care for compatibility with TeX (at least, he didn't at EuroTeX 95). So, that's a reason, why I never would *switch* to Omega. But I will *switch* to e-TeX as soon as the TeX-Live-CD arrives here (will be next week). > Phil has asked what features i miss that omega has. i'm not sure that > this was a serious question (you should know what your competing > successor is capable of, shouldn't you? :-) but in any case here are Successor? For a programm, which does not care for compatibility??? Ok, I'm not a member of the NTS group, but I think, some ideas (especially about compatibility) got confused... Bye, Uwe M"unch -- Uwe M\"unch, TeX administrator, University of Cologne http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/texmf/ WWW-Seite zu TeX http://www.ph-cip.uni-koeln.de/~muench/ private WWW-Seite "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman