Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!rochester!ken From: ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: TeX index program available Message-ID: <1989Dec8.184444.11467@cs.rochester.edu> Date: 8 Dec 89 18:44:44 GMT References: <3478@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <21061@unix.cis.pitt.edu> Reply-To: ken@cs.rochester.edu Distribution: comp Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department Lines: 11 Address: Rochester, NY 14627, (716) 275-1448 |Richard Stallman of GnuEmacs pointed out that a major weakness of TeX is |that it does not know how to sort indices, which is quite true. Otherwise Why should TeX have everything but the kitchen sink? Even Knuth, who writes large programs, didn't go out and make TeX compile fonts or half a dozen other things. Making indices is not something ordinary users use often. Here we have only a couple of users who use makeindex regularly. (No doubt this proportion is somewhat higher in sites that do a lot of technical writing.) I would not like to see what is an already moderately large program (200k or so) bloat with features that could easily be implemented externally.