From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Mon Jun 22 12:50:45 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA01263; Mon, 22 Jun 92 12:50:44 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Mon, 22 Jun 1992 12:50 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 9776; Mon, 22 Jun 92 11:49:50 PDT Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 20:29:35 +0200 From: Rainer Schoepf Subject: Information message Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: Schoepf@sc.ZIB-Berlin.DE Message-Id: X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: nts-l@VM.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE There have been some reports about problems with this mailing list. As a consequence sending to this list is now allowed for everyone, although reviewing the list (i.e. determining the subscribers' adresses) is possible only for people on the list. Unfortunately, when we first tried to change this, a mistake was made that disallowed the sending of messages. This has now been corrected. Furthermore, anyone can set his or her personal list options so that copies of his/her mail messages are sent back, by sending the following command to : set nts-l repro I have now made this setting the default for all NEW subscriptions. Rainer Sch"opf From LISTSERV@DHDURZ1.BITNET Mon Jun 22 14:11:31 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA03885; Mon, 22 Jun 92 14:11:30 MDT Received: from DHDURZ1 (MAILER@DHDURZ1) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Mon, 22 Jun 1992 14:11 MST Received: by DHDURZ1 (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 7112; Mon, 22 Jun 92 22:09:00 CET Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 22:08:58 CET From: ListEARN List Processor (1.3) Subject: Output of your job "beebe" To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Message-Id: X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU > set nts-l repro Your distribution options for list NTS-L have been successfully replaced. > ======================================================================== Unknown command -- "============================================================ ============". Try HELP. All subsequent commands have been flushed. Summary of resource utilization ------------------------------- CPU time: 2.27 sec Device I/O: 62 Overhead CPU: 2.28 sec Paging I/O: 13 CPU model: 4381 DASD model: 3380 From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 02:44:40 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA07654; Tue, 23 Jun 92 02:44:39 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 02:44 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 1176; Tue, 23 Jun 92 01:43:50 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 09:48:58 MEZ From: Mike Dowling Subject: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <274F5C320602FD75@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU In answer to Rainer Schoepf's request for pertinent info about the successor to TeX, perhaps a word or two from a user. Certainly within a university, TeX is used mainly for theses, publications, and incidental stuff such as tutorial example sheets and examination sheets. In any case, this appears to be the principle uses at my institution. This simple observation leads me to a few answers to the questions posed by Schoepf. (1) Upwards compatibility is a very minor issue for the user. Theses are written only once; there is little or no need to recompile under the successor to TeX after the thesis has been submitted. The same comment goes for publications. It is easy to dream up exceptions to this, but I contend that they are just that, exceptions. (A good counter example is the is a script accompanying a course. This script will be modified and recompiled every time the course is offered.) Another reason why I do not think that upwards compatibility is an issue for most of us is that good TeX style dictates that our input should consist of a description of the contents rather than how the contents should be formatted. This latter problem is the addressed by the macros used. Unless the successor to TeX is unrecognisably different from TeX, then converting is merely a question of changing the descriptors. I can and have changed to and from PLAIN, AMSTeX, and AMSLaTeX, and find that I can convert from one to the other at a rate of about 3000 lines in 30 Min. I am therefore confident that the few TeX files that I need to convert to NTSL will not involve significantly more time. (2) Looking at the TeX output here one must conclude that a very significant portion of the use of TeX is by students for theses. The bulk of these students have probably never used TeX before and will probably never use it again. The first conclusion is that for these users upwards compatibility cannot be issue at all. Another conclusion is that the common complaint that TeX is hard to learn is a valid one. Recall that TeX entails first reading the LaTeX book, and the TeX Book or whatever, and then editing, only to find that you have made mistakes and the file must be debugged. All this effort just for a single document? TeX in this respect is not cometetive with a wysiwyg. Of course, the experienced user does not experience these difficulties, and usually shrugs his or her shoulders dismissively when this criticism is made. Despite persuasive argument of this nature, I nevertheless remain opposed to changes in the TeX user interface. In fact, I contend that this is not so much a criticism of TeX but of the lack of support from editors which aught to supply help and syntax checking while the text is being entered. I find the idea of entering ascii text and compiling with TeX as an external program a good one, and would very much regret any divergence by the successor to TeX. (In fact, I would not update to anything that uses a graphics interface, mice and so on. I would stick to the old TeX. The reason quite simply is that mice and graphical interfaces, while reducing the knowlegde demands of the user, do so at the price of considerably slowing his or her effective working speed.) In summary, I am very much a proponent of any changes that will improve the quality and versatility of the current TeX, but am very much against any attempt at changing the nature of the user interface. Mike Dowling From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 04:58:00 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA08322; Tue, 23 Jun 92 04:57:58 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 04:57 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 2423; Tue, 23 Jun 92 03:57:03 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 11:52:39 BST From: Tim Bradshaw Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? In-Reply-To: Mike Dowling's message of Tue, 23 Jun 92 09:48:58 MEZ <9206230844.aa16214@uk.ac.ed.festival> Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <39EEEBCD0600BF28@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU >>>>> On Tue, 23 Jun 92 09:48:58 MEZ, Mike Dowling said: > (1) Upwards compatibility is a very minor issue for the user. Theses > are written only once; there is little or no need to recompile under the > successor to TeX after the thesis has been submitted. The same comment > goes for publications. It is easy to dream up exceptions to this, but > I contend that they are just that, exceptions. (A good counter example > is the is a script accompanying a course. This script will be modified > and recompiled every time the course is offered.) This is true in a rather limited way. A random user doesn't care of course, but they will care if all their weirdo undocumented macro packages, using undocumented features, that got installed 5 years ago >From no-one knows where stop working. At my current workplace an antique TeX is used, largely by naive users. One of the reasons I haven't installed anything more recent (yet...) is unwillingness to solve all the problems likely to arise when moving from 2.x with an old LaTeX to 3.x with a new LaTeX + NFSS &c &c. Major changes to TeX itself will make this problem orders of magnitude harder. I vote for absolutely freezing TeX -- it works, why not leave it? -- and really starting afresh with no ideas of backwards compatibility at *all*. --tim From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 05:05:28 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA08393; Tue, 23 Jun 92 05:05:26 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 05:05 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 2463; Tue, 23 Jun 92 04:04:44 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 13:02:33 MESZ From: Joachim Schrod Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? In-Reply-To: <199206230843.AA26561@rs3.hrz.th-darmstadt.de>; from "Mike Dowling"at Jun 23, 92 9:48 am Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <3AFCB8196602FA40@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: NTS-L@vm.urz.Uni-Heidelberg.de Mike Dowling wrote that IHO upward compatibility is not so important. I agree with him. Moreover he pointed out that he still wants the ability to work on ASCII (I equate this with `non-binary') text. I could not agree more. But I cannot resist to add a minor nitpicking. On the topic of contant-aware input systems he writes: > (In fact, I would not update to anything that uses a > graphics interface, mice and so on. I would stick to the old TeX. The > reason quite simply is that mice and graphical interfaces, while reducing > the knowlegde demands of the user, do so at the price of considerably > slowing his or her effective working speed.) I can never understand why people present graphics interface as an `all-or-nothing' choice. The good GUIs I work with have always both possibilities: To address a functionality via keyboard and via mouse, menu, or whatsever. The first possibility is very valuable for the things I know very well, the second for things I'm stumbling across. Combine the best of both worlds. Btw, there is no empirical study which supports your claim that GUIs ``[slow down] his or her effective working speed.'' But there are a lot of empirical studies which show quite the opposite. ``We've done $50 million of R&D on the Apple Human Interface. We've discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts: 1) Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing. 2) the stopwatch consistently reports that mousing is faster than keyboarding.'' -- Bruce Tognazzini, Tog on Interface, Addison Wesley, 1992 -- Joachim =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Joachim Schrod Email: schrod@iti.informatik.th-darmstadt.de Computer Science Department Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany ``How do we persuade new users that spreading fonts across the page like peanut butter across hot toast is not necessarily the route to typographic excellence? -- Peter Flynn From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 06:16:36 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA08586; Tue, 23 Jun 92 06:16:35 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 06:16 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 3523; Tue, 23 Jun 92 05:15:26 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 12:41:59 BST From: Timothy Murphy Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? In-Reply-To: Mike Dowling's message of Tue, 23 Jun 92 09:48:58 MEZ Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <44E8B22B4603193F@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU Mike Dowling writes: > Certainly within a university, TeX is used mainly for theses, > publications, and incidental stuff such as tutorial example sheets and > examination sheets. Aren't you being a little arrogant in assuming that every university is like your (unnamed) institution? In this Maths Dept, everything down to internal memos is done in TeX/LaTeX. Every student is supposed to become familiar with TeX in their first year. We regard TeX as the standard language for the communication of mathematics. > (1) Upwards compatibility is a very minor issue for the user. I couldn't disagree more. Shoepf and Mittelbach have gone to a great deal of trouble to maintain compatibility as far as possible. Even so, their changes have caused considerable misgivings here. A colleague said to me last week that he felt LaTeX was being taken over by non-mathematicians. (This was apropos of printing a single bold character in mathmode. He argued that this was something every mathematician would want to do, and that S&M did not seem to appreciate that.) If Mike's advice were followed, LaTeX/NTS would die out in a year. The number of people who are going to use an undocumented system, with innumerable added 'features', is negligible. Let's put our cards on the table. TeX/LaTeX is basically a system for printing mathematics. It is not a toy for computer scientists. If it is found useful for printing Devanagari or music (or Devanagari music), so much the better. But if it ever loses that central user-base of mathematicians, it is doomed. In my view, every "improvement" to TeX/LaTeX should first be tried out on a battery of tame mathematicians. Timothy Murphy e-mail: tim@maths.tcd.ie tel: +353-1-2842366 (home/office) +353-1-7021507 (university) fax: +353-1-2842295 s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 08:21:18 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA08953; Tue, 23 Jun 92 08:21:16 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 08:20 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 0742; Tue, 23 Jun 92 07:18:48 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 15:33:58 EST From: Werenfried Spit Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 23 Jun 92 13:02:33 MESZ from Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <56389464F6030736@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU Mike Dowling wrote that upward compatibility is not important. I do not really know if it is, but I do not agree at all on one of the reasons he gives for his opinion. He says that processing older documents is not a mayor issue. I'm just a simple user of LaTeX, but I think it is. I quite often use parts of older notes when writing a paper, especially when the older notes contain interesting tables or formulas. The reason being that retyping these *without errors* can be more work than I like. A related (and probably more important) issue in my experience is preparing a document with more authors. I have done a lot of retyping when other authors used WP/ChiWrite/whatever; I wouldn't like to retype or do a lot of conversion work also when other authors use (La)TeX and I use NTS. Clearly both situatiuons will only be around for the time that both TeX and NTS will be used. But that could be for a reasonable while I'd guess. I do not know if preventing problems in this kind of situations really demands upward compatibility (I could think of a *very good* TeX2NTS tool to accompany NTS), but I think they merit some thought. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Werenfried Spit tel: +34-6-386 4551 Departamento de F­sica Teërica spit@vm.ci.uv.es Universidad de Valencia spit@evalun11.bitnet From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 08:21:22 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA08958; Tue, 23 Jun 92 08:21:21 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 08:20 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 0795; Tue, 23 Jun 92 07:19:14 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 15:46:23 EST From: Werenfried Spit Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 23 Jun 92 12:41:59 BST from Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <563C096776030736@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU On Tue, 23 Jun 92 12:41:59 BST Timothy Murphy said: > >[argument about upward compatibility deleted] > >Let's put our cards on the table. >TeX/LaTeX is basically a system for printing mathematics. > I think here Timothy is making the same mistake as Mike: assuming his own situation to be the predominant one. (La)TeX is also an important system in the physics world, and as far as I know it is also used in linguistic departments a.o. because of its abilities to handle all kinds of alphabets. Certainly NTS should be a valuable tool for mathematicians, just like TeX is. But it should *not* be a toy for mathematicians only. >It is not a toy for computer scientists. > That's certainly ture. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Werenfried Spit tel: +34-6-386 4551 Departamento de F­sica Teërica spit@vm.ci.uv.es Universidad de Valencia spit@evalun11.bitnet From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 08:58:50 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA09201; Tue, 23 Jun 92 08:58:48 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 08:58 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 3439; Tue, 23 Jun 92 07:58:02 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 13:43:30 LCL From: spqr@MINSTER.YORK.AC.UK Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <5B959EF5C6032112@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: NTS-L@VM.URZ.Uni-Heidelberg.De Timothy Murphy writes: > A colleague said to me last week > that he felt LaTeX was being taken over by non-mathematicians. thank god for that! > Let's put our cards on the table. > TeX/LaTeX is basically a system for printing mathematics. > It is not a toy for computer scientists. > If it is found useful for printing Devanagari or music (or > Devanagari music) if TeX is for mathematics, then why not just leave it alone? I thought the reason for its survival was that it is a system for describing printed pages which has many interesting applications. If it evolves into a system whose overwhelming raison d'etre is printing maths, then it will die even sooner, since it will never be adopted by the `ordinary' publishers and printers whose needs dominate the industry. Or maybe we *want* TeX to remain an academic curiosity. sebastian From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 09:34:19 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA09491; Tue, 23 Jun 92 09:34:17 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 09:34 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 5121; Tue, 23 Jun 92 08:33:15 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 11:14:41 EDT From: Mark Steinberger Subject: Interface? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <6088B0C5A6030120@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU I concur that a graphics interface is a very bad idea. I do most of my work by dialup, and get no graphics capability at all while I work. I suspect that a number of people who use mainframe based systems are in exactly the same situation. At the same time, I think the plusses involved in having a centralized, mainframe based facility at a given site are significant. For instance, who is going to take the time to maintain a tex collection on each and every PC in the department? You can't assume that all users will have work stations with a GUI or that those who have them will not spend significant time dialing in >From home. Besides, with a little experience, previewing becomes relatively unimportant, as the resolution of a previewer is rarely sufficient to cover all the things you want to check out. You are going to have the same problem if you try to compose using a graphical interface. It's much better to design your document conceptually, and then check hard copy where necessary, to see if the concepts work. --Mark From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 10:28:39 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA09805; Tue, 23 Jun 92 10:28:37 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 10:26 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 6940; Tue, 23 Jun 92 09:12:42 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 12:13:01 EDT From: "B.J. 23-Jun-1992 1211" Subject: RE: Interface? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <67E43EB6A602A378@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: nts-l%dhdurz1.bitnet@vm.gmd.de > I concur that a graphics interface is a very bad idea. > > I do most of my work by dialup, and get no graphics capability at all > while I work. I suspect that a number of people who use mainframe > based systems are in exactly the same situation. This is a good reason that a graphical interface shouldn't be the only interface, but it is a terrible reason for not having a graphical interface. It's an argument along the same lines as `Sometimes I don't have a pen, so everyone should do all their work using stone tablets'. I agree that it is important to have a good character cell interface, but that shouldn't preclude a graphical interface. > At the same time, I think the plusses involved in having a > centralized, mainframe based facility at a given site are significant. > For instance, who is going to take the time to maintain a tex > collection on each and every PC in the department? I don't use PCs regularly, but don't `PC networks' solve this problem? If they don't, then the will soon because this problem isn't specifically a TeX problem--any large program set will have the same problem. > Besides, with a little experience, previewing becomes relatively > unimportant, as the resolution of a previewer is rarely sufficient to > cover all the things you want to check out. After eight years of using TeX, I still find that I regularly use previewers and find that the standard resolution (one page inch equal to one screen inch) is almost always sufficient for my needs. On the rare occasion when the resolution isn't sufficient, I change the resolution to one (or four) screen pixels for each page pixel. This allows me to see the details of the problem when the printed version only shows that a problem exists. Hardcopy is necessary for final distribution of the document, but is rarely sufficient for preparation. > You are going to have the same problem if you try to compose using a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > graphical interface. It's much better to design your document > conceptually, and then check hard copy where necessary, to see if the > concepts work. You are painting with quite a broad brush. The graphical interface hasn't been defined and you already know the problems it will have. If the graphical interface is a WYSIWYG interface then the problem you describe is likely, but I wouldn't consider a system with only a WYSIWYG interface to be a likely successor to TeX. B.J. From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 23 11:45:32 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA10661; Tue, 23 Jun 92 11:45:31 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 23 Jun 1992 11:45 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 1532; Tue, 23 Jun 92 10:44:47 PDT Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 19:17:18 MEZ From: Mike Dowling Subject: Re upwards compatibility Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <72E000BDD602991F@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU I would like to get one point straight, and that is that I did not intend to make the "arogant" claim that my situation as far as upwards compatibility is concerned is necessarily the same for everyone. I merely wanted to make a point that I think is a valid one, namely that, as long as you don't go in for personal hacks, your text is generally easily converted from one macro system to another, and that will probably go for porting TeX to NTS. Moreover, most texts will not need porting anyway. I am quite well aware that there are many other users with differering problems, and thought that I had been careful to point out that I was speaking about my experiences and those with whom I have a close contact. A second point was that the bulk of TeX users here appear to be students, and, since most complete their degree within about 5 years or so, for them upwards compatibility is an issue that will die within that period. Upwards compatibility for FORTRAN has not been good for FORTRAN, while the economic arguments there are much more convincing. I feel that it would be a pity to create this sort of straight-jacket for NTS, where, and I say it again, the need for it is probably the exception and not the rule. I repeat, I am speaking as a user and not a macro writer. Those who will have the most to loose if upwards compatibility is not enforced are those who have written extensive macro packages. Particularly publishing houses, those who write style files for thesis formats or technical reports, and so on, they will have a lot of work on their hands. Nevertheless, those expecting problems can speak for themselves; it is not for me to plead their cases. From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Wed Jun 24 08:23:42 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA18104; Wed, 24 Jun 92 08:23:41 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Wed, 24 Jun 1992 08:23 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 6436; Wed, 24 Jun 92 07:22:27 PDT Date: Wed, 24 Jun 92 14:34:19 +0100 From: Robin Fairbairns Subject: Re: Character sets vs. fonts Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <1FCBB3B786031038@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: nts-l@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.de [I tried to post this reply to the list some time ago, but was caught up in the problems I've mentioned elsewhere (comp.text.tex). This is a followup to a posting by (as I recall) Joachim Schrod, addressed to Barbara and me: Barbara has said that she doesn't have time to take an active part...] >barbara wrote: >> >> robin fairbairns has given a good summary of the dichotomy between >> character codes and glyphs as considered by the standards world, and >> he's quite right that these two concepts are combined (and thereby >> mixed up) in tex's fonts. > >Hmm, barbara, do I miss something? I cannot follow you and Robin, >perhaps because I don't see the program TeX82 alone, but the >combination TeX82/driver. [...] >Where is the problem? > Can you or Robin supply me with examples of encoding problems >which are not easily resolved by the existing mechanisms? Where are >the three encodings (cf. character coding / glyph position), together >with two freely adaptable mappings, not enough? My original posting came up in response to Yannis' post saying that he wanted to have font-dependent uc/lccodes. Fair enough, considering the sorts of things he does. But he also mentioned that there were fonts that he deals with that won't fit into a single TeX (256-position) font. Suppose, then, that he has a uccode mapping that might take him into a different (TeX) font. What is he to do? (Note: I have no idea whether this happens in `real life'.) But Yannis had merely rattled my cage about an issue that I had always considered an untidiness of TeX82, viz., its combination of the two orthogonal concepts of font and character set into a single entity, the TeX font. So we have a hard-wired xchr/xord mechanism in TeX, that takes _all_ 8-bit character sets to the _same_ internal representation. For TeX's original audience (i.e., DEK writing The Art), a single 7-bit character set (mangled ASCII) was adequate. With TeX 3.0, we have the recognition that things aren't as simple, and we have the VF mechanism in support of character translation. But that's seriously `after the event'. What constitutes a `letter' can reasonably be very different in different character sets. Similarly for the relationship between upper- and lower-case codes. Aside from all this is the practical point of what commercially- available fonts, and their supporting technology, are going to look like by the time NTS hits the streets. My guess is that they'll all have ISO 9541 font metrics, and that they'll all be published with ISO 10646 (i.e., Unicode) based cell mappings. So my argument (reconstructed from the posting that Listserv has dropped on the floor) is 1. There seems to be a problem beyond what Yannis outlined 2. Design purity (distinction of orthogonal concepts) suggest a different approach 3. Commercial fonts will probably start appearing that require a change on NTS's part if they are to be used. -- Robin Fairbairns, sometime Senior Consultant, postmaster, etc. Laser-Scan Ltd., Science Park, Milton Rd., Cambridge CB4 4FY, UK Email: robin@lsl.co.uk --or-- rf@cl.cam.ac.uk From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Mon Jun 29 07:23:02 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA02729; Mon, 29 Jun 92 07:23:01 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Mon, 29 Jun 1992 07:22 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 8612; Mon, 29 Jun 92 06:22:22 PDT Date: Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:56:00 EET From: NMARTOLA@FINABO.ABO.FI Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <0533D3FEE6046677@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: NTS-L%DHDURZ1.BITNET@FINHUTC.hut.fi From: IN%"NTS-L%DHDURZ1.BITNET@FINHUTC.hut.fi" "NTS-L Distribution list" 23-JUN-1992 17:10:52.10 To: IN%"NMARTOLA@finabo.abo.fi" "Nils Martola" CC: Subj: RE: Upwards compatibility necessary? On Tue, 23 Jun 92 12:41:59 BST Timothy Murphy said: > >[argument about upward compatibility deleted] > >Let's put our cards on the table. >TeX/LaTeX is basically a system for printing mathematics. > I think here Timothy is making the same mistake as Mike: assuming his own situation to be the predominant one. (La)TeX is also an important system in the physics world, and as far as I know it is also used in linguistic departments a.o. because of its abilities to handle all kinds of alphabets. Certainly NTS should be a valuable tool for mathematicians, just like TeX is. But it should *not* be a toy for mathematicians only. --------------------------------------------------- I second that! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Werenfried Spit tel: +34-6-386 4551 > Departamento de F%sica Tehrica spit@vm.ci.uv.es > Universidad de Valencia spit@evalun11.bitnet Nils Martola nmartola@finabo (Earn/Bitnet) nmartola@abo.fi (Internet) From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Mon Jun 29 08:19:15 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA02929; Mon, 29 Jun 92 08:19:14 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Mon, 29 Jun 1992 08:19 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 0850; Mon, 29 Jun 92 07:18:16 PDT Date: Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:54:54 CET From: bbeeton Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? In-Reply-To: <01GLS5HXJ1N68WW4DZ@MATH.AMS.COM> Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <0D0D65003604337A@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: NTS-L%DHDURZ1.BITNET@vm.gmd.de i realize that responding to the comments about upward compatibility and what tex is designed for comes dangerously close to flaming, but ... please let's not lose sight of the fact that the original use for tex -- technical text -- is not satisfied for certain math publishers by *any* *other* *tool*. and if nts, regardless of how many improvements for internal graphics processing, etc., is not as suitable for that purpose, then those publishers would be left with the original tex or *nothing*; that would be a most unsatisfactory situation. -- bb From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Mon Jun 29 08:59:39 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA03150; Mon, 29 Jun 92 08:59:38 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Mon, 29 Jun 1992 08:59 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 3572; Mon, 29 Jun 92 07:58:46 PDT Date: Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:53:23 BST From: CHAA006@VAX.RHBNC.AC.UK Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: RHBNC Philip Taylor Message-Id: <12B1146F96043E02@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU >>> i realize that responding to the comments about upward compatibility >>> and what tex is designed for comes dangerously close to flaming, but ... And disagreeing with Barbara is dangerously close to heresy, but that won't stop me ... >>> if nts, [...] is not [...] suitable [...] >>> then those publishers would be left with >>> the original tex or *nothing*; that would be a most unsatisfactory >>> situation. Most unsatisfactory? Methinks you go too far! Has the position been either an unsatisfactory NTS or nothing, I could/would agree with you, but to be left with TeX V3 or nothing is very decidely _not_ unsatisfactory. TeX V3 is a _very_ satisfactory system (IMHO), and one which a leading mathematician with initials in the set {D, E, K} has deemed to be quite satisfactory enough to leave for posterity. Of course we may be able to improve on TeX, but to argue that `TeX or nothing' is an unsatisfactory position is surely indefensible ? ** Phil. From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Mon Jun 29 11:20:26 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA04183; Mon, 29 Jun 92 11:20:25 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Mon, 29 Jun 1992 11:20 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 1139; Mon, 29 Jun 92 10:19:33 PDT Date: Mon, 29 Jun 92 20:18:00 +0300 From: Michael Maschler Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <265AAB38A604625C@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU The debate whether a new version of TeX should be upward compatible has nothing to do with the fact that TeX is mainly/only used to type mathematical texts. Neither has it anything to do with the fact that some/many users use it only to type one thesis. Such students will be much better off if they hire a typist to type their thesis. They will save themselves a lot of time and agony. The real issue is: how many users need TeX to read/modify old texts, as compared to what sacrifices are needed, to achieve compatibility. To cite a sample of one person, I desire upward compatibility for the following reasons: 1. I keep a rather large list of articles, written in TeX, which is updated regularly. I hate to think that it will have to be retyped when a new version arrives. 2. I maintain many reprints in TeX form to be delivered to whoever requests them. [Of course, I could keep them in .ps form, so this is not so important.] 3. I am engaged in writing a book --- a project that takes several good years, because I also do other things. For me, therefore, it is unthinkable to switch to a noncompatible version. Michael From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 30 00:57:36 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA03962; Tue, 30 Jun 92 00:57:34 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 30 Jun 1992 00:57 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 4526; Mon, 29 Jun 92 23:56:53 PDT Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 07:56:00 GMT From: malcolm Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <98851691D6046247@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU i don't want to get into this compatibility debate. but michael's reasons don't seem to me to hold water. is it impossible for the old and the new to coexist? let's try to be realistic: if the new system is incompatible, many people will not change. they don't want to relearn, they have some investment in the old system. there will probably be a big enough reservoir that people will still go on porting TeX to whatever new systems come along (or keep an ageing sparc10 just for (La)TeX work). the new system, however magnificent and typographically sound, will not oust TeX entirely. apart from anything else, it is not TeX. people have heard of TeX, even if only the curses of TeXies and nonTeXies alike. you cannot spend money on promoting nts (because you don't have any), and it will spread only slowly through academia, and perhaps a few publishers (probably driven by their authors). if it is compatible with TeX, many people, like me, will have no real reason to change. after all, it is 99% sufficient for us already. whether that extra 1% is worth the pain wil be an indivual decision. incidentally, if people wrote their documents in sgml, then it wouldn't matter what the formatter was. must go and wash my mouth out. this orthogonality of form and structure is crucifying me. best malcolm From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 30 01:46:33 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA04212; Tue, 30 Jun 92 01:46:31 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 30 Jun 1992 01:46 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 5326; Tue, 30 Jun 92 00:45:24 PDT Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 09:44:09 +0200 From: rolf.lindgren@USIT.UIO.NO Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <9F59AD1E96046A17@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU malcolm writes: > i don't want to get into this compatibility debate. > but michael's reasons don't seem to me to hold water. > is it impossible for the old and the new to coexist? > I think a major point stated earlier in this discussion concerend the matter of resources. TeX is huge, and so will NTS most likely be, and lots of (PC, Mac, Amiga, Atari) users won't have room for both. I don't see a real reason why users of NTS should _have_ to convert all their old documents, I for one would keep the dvis or PSs and print them out at leisure. But at what level would compatilbility be needed? The main reason TeX is so huge is the fonts. If NTS and TeX could share the same fonts, then would the combination still be too large? What I would do as the maintainer of a fairly small PC site might be to keep TeX on one PC, and have the users switch from TeX to NTS. Rolf Lindgren | "The opinions expressed above are 616 Bjerke Studentheim | not necessarily those of anyone" N-0589 OSLO 5 | rolfl.lindgren@usit.uio.no From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 30 08:43:26 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA07384; Tue, 30 Jun 92 08:43:24 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 30 Jun 1992 08:43 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 6246; Tue, 30 Jun 92 07:42:42 PDT Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 15:41:00 GMT From: malcolm Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU fonts: i had rather taken it for granted that nts would make use of more modern font technologies, which i take to be more compact. i realise that this was a rather implicit assumption that has not been examined. (i now expect to be chastised by nelson for refering to an implementation issue...) but given the extremely low price of disk space, is size really an issue (hmm)? i'm afraid that if it is not worth spending \quid200 or so for the extra disk (which will only be 10% used by nts, even with bitmapped fonts), then your interest in upwards compatibility and or quality may be compromised. and by the time nts is ready, that \quid200 will be even lower. malcolm From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 30 10:53:11 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA08352; Tue, 30 Jun 92 10:53:09 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 30 Jun 1992 10:53 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 3455; Tue, 30 Jun 92 09:52:23 PDT Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 19:50:00 +0300 From: Michael Maschler Subject: Re: Upwards compatibility necessary? Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU > i don't want to get into this compatibility debate. > but michael's reasons don't seem to me to hold water. > is it impossible for the old and the new to coexist? > > > best > > malcolm That depends on your storage capacity. Note that a new version is not just another set of macros. It may need a different set of fonts, a different set of environment variables, etc. To work with different sets means also using a different syntax as well as different commands. Show me a secretary who will want to undergo such a ``split personality''. Regards, Michael From NTS-L@DHDURZ1.Berkeley.EDU Tue Jun 30 13:35:15 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Return-Path: Received: from cc.utah.edu by math.utah.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1-utah-csc-server) id AA09910; Tue, 30 Jun 92 13:35:14 MDT Received: from cmsa.Berkeley.EDU (MAILER@UCBCMSA) by CC.UTAH.EDU with PMDF#10043; Tue, 30 Jun 1992 13:34 MST Received: by UCBCMSA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 1668; Tue, 30 Jun 92 12:33:19 PDT Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 21:09:16 MEZ From: Mike Dowling Subject: upwards compatibility again Sender: NTS-L Distribution list To: "Nelson H.F. Beebe" Reply-To: NTS-L Distribution list Message-Id: <025275DAF6047C74@CC.UTAH.EDU> X-Envelope-To: beebe@MATH.UTAH.EDU X-To: nts-l@dhdurz1.earn (1) It was recently pointed out that ntls might get too big for say DOS. I don't know what the time schedule is for nts but would be surprised if it became available within fewer than 5 years. If DOS survives until then (and I have my doubts) it will certainly have been transformed so that large programs will run without dos extenders and so on. If I am right, creating nts to fit into the straight-jacket of the current versions of dos will prove superfluous. (2) My suspicion is that any nts will be differ mainly in the guts of the TeX lion and probably will not necessitate much change with the user interface. I would be interested in the comments of a few experts here; does anyone really envisage changes that are so drastic as to necessitate retyping older texts? I am also in the process of writing a book and have been keeping up to scratch with the new LaTeX and have hitherto experienced no problems when updating my texts. (I once had a compatibility problem because I was fool enough to to mix old styles with the new, but mistakes like this are made only once.) Mike Dowling