[comp.text.tex] Backwards compatibility

wilcox@blob.cis.ohio-state.edu (Patricia P Wilcox) (09/22/90)

In article <33672@super.ORG> mfb@super.ORG (Michael F. Bridgland) writes:
>Short version:
>
>    (1) Save your old amstex.tex and amsppt.sty under other names
>        when you install version 2 of AmS-TeX, because version 2 is
>        not backward-compatible with older versions.

We just installed LaTeX (version 2.09?) from the U. of Washington Unix
TeX distribution and found that "\part" has been moved from the 10-point,
11-point, and 12-point style files to the main (e.g. article.sty) file.

Now people, this may be nice from the standpoint of neatness, but it
means that any customized style file someone has previously built using
article.sty as a basis will now fail, because \part will be missing.

*Please* think about maintaining the functionality of the enormous body
of previous work based on the original book version of LaTeX when you
set out to change things.

I'm worried that the committee working on the wonderful new upgrade of
LaTeX for TeX 3.0 will lose sight of compatibility considerations.  If
the new LaTeX will not work with all previous LaTeX applications, it
should be called something else, not "LaTeX".

(Flame off...   8-)

--Pat Wilcox   (wilcox@cis.ohio-state.edu)