Marcel Oliver <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >If you look at these classes, they point to some problem which will >grow in the future: The standard LaTeX classes have a rather >restricted set of front matter commands. So every publisher is >extending them in mutually incompatible ways. > >The AMS classes have reversed the order of abstract and \maketitle >with good reason, I believe, and there is a case that this should be >the default behaviour for all classes. ... >In any case, there is definitely the need for a standard. I would >like to be able to just change the document class to reformat my >documents in a different style without having to do trivial but >annoying changes to the front matter. Also, when I start writing an >article, I don't necessarily know where it will be published. Thus it >is practically useful to have a front matter standard that all >publishers could agree to and comply with. Such things could be achieved by a suitable form of object orientation, or developing modules, which spread out the code horizontally rather than vertically. Hans Aberg