Xref: utzoo comp.text.tex:5225 news.groups:27579 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!ox-prg!culhua!Damian.Cugley From: Damian.Cugley@prg.ox.ac.uk (Damian Cugley) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex,news.groups Subject: Re: Idea for Discussion: Remove LaTeX from TeX Group? Message-ID: Date: 7 Feb 91 11:28:25 GMT References: <58132@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> Sender: news@prg.ox.ac.uk Organization: Oxford University Computing Laboratory, UK Lines: 47 In-reply-to: xiaofei@acsu.buffalo.edu's message of 6 Feb 91 15:12:02 GMT From: Xiaofei Wang Message-Id: <58132@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> > Would that be a good idea to remove LaTeX related discussions from > ``comp.text.TeX'' to ``comp.text.LaTeX''? Yes!! Sounds doubleplusgood to me. (The names would have to be downcased.) An alternative would be to always have `LaTeX' in the subject line when talking about problems with LaTeX... > As far as code writing is concerned, Plain TeX users and LaTeX users > don't usually talk to each other. Few people use both Plain TeX and > LaTeX. I am a Plain TeX user and not interested in how to do this and > that in LaTeX. I feel the same -- normally I use plain TeX, or rather macro packages of my own devising. Partly because, by the nature of TeX code, trying to get someone else's macros to work is so much hassle it's just as easy to write my own. (The number of times I was forced to read the LaTeX source to get around holes in the manual...!) > LaTeX is designed the way as it is, it is inappropriate and a waste of > time to ask it to do things it is not designed to do. In that case, I > would think one should write one's own macro based on *original* TeX. I used LaTeX to do some maths but ended up writing an enormous so-called style file to get the things I wanted. LaTeX has many holes that can only be patched with arcane plain-TeX knowledge or non-standard style files full of same. (A lot of this should have been avoided through "hooks" allowing the user to insert code into standard macros without rewriting them.) //- Damian Cugley ----\ /--- Oxford University Computing Laboratory, -\ || pdc@prg.ox.ac.uk || \--- 11 Keble Rd, Oxford, UK OX1 3QD --------/ || pdc@uk.ac.ox.prg || \--------------------// "His feet are the wrong size for his shoes."