dhosek@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (D.A. Hosek) (12/15/89)
In article <6744@tank.uchicago.edu> c3ar@zaphod.uchicago.edu (Walter C3arlip) writes: >The December AMS Notices has a full page add for Spivak's LamsTeX. The ad >has some pretty spiffy 3d commutative diagrams (well, actually I haven't >checked whether they commute) and an example of a rather complicated table. >The add also says that LamsTeX will come with the latest amstex: Version >2.0. This is a little surprising since, as any TeX historians out there are doubtless aware, Spivak and the AMS didn't exactly part on exactly friendly terms. But then again, since he _did_ write AmS-TeX... >Now to quote the ad: >"All the functionality of LaTeX with much greater flexibility and all the >features of AMS-TeX plus complicated commutative diagrams, complicated >tables and much much more! >--Latest amstex.tex (Version 2.0) >--Lams macro packages >--300 page Manual . . . >--Fonts for commutative diagrams . . . MetaFont sources . . . Mac versions > with fonts for TeXtures >--dvipaste program for including tables in files >--index program >Single user price $95." >The address given for orders is The TeXplorators Corporation, 3701 W. >Alabama, Suite 450-273, Houston, Texas 77027. >So has anyone out there actually seen this product? Tried it? >Any new news on the new AMS products? Spivak had a preliminary copy of the manual at the TUG meeting at Stanford back in August. I'll try to remember to bring my notes from that with me when I come back from my apartment next and I'll report my impressions and also list what Ralph Youngen from the AMS said about their new releases. Spivak apparently decided to go to Stanford in a hurry, or forgot that it was that weekend as he was a little unprepared to present his product. As I said, he had a preliminary copy of the LAmSTeX manual (which had been printed while he packed for the conference) and a few sheets of sample output, but that's it. The package is very big. So big in fact, that tables must be done in a separate TeX run (thus, the dvipaste program, which is written in C, and in August, ran only on PCs--it was written up in TUGboat 10#2 (see below for information on joining TUG and getting your very own copy) and it was indicated that a copy of the program could be had at duplication cost (I think it was $5 plus a disk, but it would be a good idea to check before sending off for it)). I think some other macros are only loaded if needed. The impression of somebody else at the meeting (I forget who) was that being off the nets, Spivak was unaware of a good deal of what's happened in the TeX world, so some of it may not be so state of the art as we would like. I'll put this on my list of things to evaluate somewhere along the line. -dh -- "Odi et amo, quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior" -Catullus D.A. Hosek. UUCP: uunet!jarthur!dhosek Internet: dhosek@hmcvax.claremont.edu
gae@osupyr.mps.ohio-state.edu (Gerald Edgar) (12/22/89)
Some remarks about the new LamS-TeX macro package. It was written by Michael Spivak. It is now available, see the ad in the December Notices of the AMS (the page with the complicated commutative diagram). LamS-TeX is a set of macros that sits on top of AmS-TeX. It is intended for writing mathematical text using TeX. The package includes AmS-TeX version 2.0. But it does not include the new AMS fonts that would be required to use all of the features of AmS-TeX (msam, msbm, cmmib, cmbsy). The package does not include TeX itself. If you know about AmS-TeX, then you know most of the features available here. The main additions: (1) Symbolic cross-references. This is handled as in LaTeX. Theorems, Tables, Figures, Sections, References (and anything else you choose) are automatically numbered. You can assign a symbolic name to them, and use that name elsewhere. The proper number will be inserted. When the numbering changes, these numbers will be changed, too (although perhaps not until the succeding time the file is TeXed). (2) Commutative diagrams (!!!). Much more extensive than the diagrams possible with AmS-TeX alone. Five new fonts (and Metafont source) are supplied for this: arrow parts at many different angles. Now I am not a large user of commutative diagrams: probably there are fewer than 10 diagrams in all the papers I ever published. But I once needed a diagram with a diagonal arrow, and was unhappy to find that AmS-TeX did not know how to do this. I find it difficult to imagine any diagram that LamS-TeX will not do. (I could imagine using this feature even in papers on graph theory to draw graphs. Or to draw geometrical figures ...) I think this one feature is the main reason mathematicians will be interested in LamS-TeX. (3) Tables. See the ad for a sample of a complicated table. (4) Many other features that I have not tried. For example, an external program to use to alphabetize an (automatically produced) index. Negatives: (5) It is very big. I did run it on my Macintosh (2 meg RAM) using ctex running under MPW. The doc suggests that it runs with TeXtures, also. HOWEVER, it is too big for the default version of OzTeX. Apparently OxTeX sets the hash size at 2500, but LamS-TeX requires 2696. [Knuth originally said that 2100 is "ample".] And of course you will want to define a few macros of your own after LamS-TeX is loaded ... There is a \purge feature to remove parts of LamS-TeX that are not needed and recover their space. But it recovers only the main memory space, and does not allow more multiletter control sequences. (6) A question I received by email: > Please let us know what you think of LAmS-TeX after > using it for a bit; I've got lots of stuff in LaTeX: > any hope of a painless conversion? Answer: NO. LamS-TeX is NOT LaTeX; the syntax is different, the philosophy is different. Basically, LamS-TeX is more like plain TeX.