> In <[log in to unmask]> David Carlisle <[log in to unmask]> writes: > > LaTeX evidently has a syntax based on Pascal, but this syntax is not > > explicitly part of LaTeX, only something that the developers of LaTeX use > > internally > > >I think you are probably referring to the pascal-ish comments that were > >in the sorces for latex209 and some remain in the `oldcomments' sections > >in the current sources. Leslie Lamport used those while designing the > > <nitpick> > AFAIK it is not pascal-ish, but classic algol68-like pseudocode. :-) > </nitpick> frankly, whatever the pseudocode looks like (and wirth would once have been apoplectic to have pascal-like and algol68-like confused ;-), i think hans aberg's original suggestion is just plain wrong. latex's syntax has a little bit of regularity, a little bit of block structure, ..., but all told it's so uneven that it's silly to imagine `formally' specifying it. added to which, the extreme difficult of faulting tex primitives, etc., that fall outside the scope of the syntax makes the utility of such a specification doubtful. robin