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From: dhosek@linus.claremont.edu (Don Hosek)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: The idea of LaTeX
Message-ID: <1991Feb11.235240.1@linus.claremont.edu>
Date: 12 Feb 91 07:52:40 GMT
References: <58132@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <1991Feb12.012451.9970@cs.wright.edu>
Sender: news@jarthur.Claremont.EDU
Organization: Quixote
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>   Ummm, the idea of LaTeX is to remove the user from the complexity
> of TeX.  Of course TeX can do what LaTeX can do, LaTeX is, after all,
> a subset of TeX.  LaTeX was not built to become a new TeX, but to make
> common functions easier to use, thus, LaTeX cannot do everything TeX can.
> On the other hand, LaTeX does allow the user to enter TeX commands if
> needs arise.  I'm not sure how since I don't understand TeX commands
> to begin with.

The purpose of LaTeX has nothing to do with removing the
complexity of plain TeX from the user. (It is a happy
side-effect, but it's _not_ the purpose).

It's amazing how many people out there will sing the praises of
object-oriented programming and never once think about
object-oriented formatting.

The purpose of LaTeX is to tell the computer what things _are_
and leave worrying about how things _look_ to some other time
and/or person.

In an ideal world, customization of styles in LaTeX would have
been simpler and there would be a manual on style design (and
there will be if I ever get my LaTeX users guide finished and out
the door).

-dh