At 13:23 -0500 1998/11/06, Mark Steinberger wrote: >It's important to be able to write in a language that > > 1. has macros > > 2. conveys the semantic information needed for the target language. If one should be able to use shorthand notation and abbreviations semantically correct, then one should not use macros at all: One should define a correct language parsing using LeX/Yacc style programs. TeX avoids all this stuff because at the time it probably seemed difficult to Knuth; using macros is the "quick and dirty" approach, the specialty of Knuth. But adding a more sophisticated understanding of syntaxes is what is needed. Hans Aberg * Email: Hans Aberg <mailto:[log in to unmask]> * Home Page: <http://www.matematik.su.se/~haberg/> * AMS member listing: <http://www.ams.org/cml/>