At 11:12 97/06/17, Chris Rowley wrote:
>Joerg wrote --
>
>>
>> most e-TeX primitives are primitive and should be hidden away from the end
>> user. However, some of them were introduced with LaTeX in mind. A very
>> serious project consists in rewriting and testing parts of the _LaTeX kernel_
>> in e-TeX. This task probably needs another volunteer team, I am afraid.
>
>As Frank has explained this is certainly true of future e-TeX versions;
>it is not clear to me that e-TeX at present provides a lot of such
>capabilities.
>
>I also think that a better way to start such a process would be to
>produce experimental packages rather than start chnaging the kernel.
>This will demonstrate how the kernel should be changed and provide a
>more accessible way for a wide range of people to expermient with the
>e-TeX features and their effects at the user-level, should they wish to.

  Would it not be possible to write LaTeX with conditional compilation,
like when you write C++ programs, so that the same source code can compile
on several different kernels (e-TeX, TeX, etc)? One way to do this, could
be writing a platform dependent LaTeX microkernel (with a special source
codes for e-TeX, TeX), on top which the LaTeX kernel is being built.

  Hans Aberg