[comp.text.tex] Documentation on TeX 3.0

dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (06/28/90)

In article <SPQR.90Jun26174222@manutius.ecs.soton.ac.uk>, spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) writes...
>In article <1990Jun25.165048.4096@king.mcs.drexel.edu> tex@king.mcs.drexel.edu (TeX account) writes:

>   Is there any documentation available (preferably by anonymous ftp)
>   on the new features of TeX 3.0?

>how about the recent issues of Tugboat? yes, I know they are not
>available via FTP but anyone interested in the arcana of 3.0 should
>join TUG anyway. The new features are not going to change your life in
>any way, unless you typeset in languages other than american english
                                                     ^^^^^^^^
                                           (more smug britishness? :-)

Being someone who typesets quite a bit of American English, I
find that TeX 3.0 has dramatically changed my life. Since I've
started using TeX 3.0, I've been promoted, have won the lottery,
am constantly hounded by fabulous babes, and my shirts come back
from the laundry whiter than ever.

And it also has had an effect on my typography and macro writing.
In particular:

  - TeX now has a parameter \emergencystretch, which allows
    better setting of difficult paragraphs (if TeX can't do a
    good job setting the paragraph, it tries inserting
    \emergencystretch additional stretchability in every line. No
    longer                                                  will
    this sort of thing happen to my documents!
  - I can check the \badness of the last box constructed.
  - I can get the input line number (I haven't found a use for
    this yet.
  - I can reduce or extend the error context display as
    necessary.

I won't even begin to mention what TeX 3.0 can do for my Greek
typesetting.

-dh

---
Don Hosek                         TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont Consulting and
dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu         production work. Free Estimates.
dhosek@ymir.bitnet                
uunet!jarthur!ymir                Phone: 714-625-0147

Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM (06/28/90)

dhosek@sif.claremont.edu writes about TeX 3.0:
>  - I can get the input line number (I haven't found a use for
>    this yet.
>  - I can reduce or extend the error context display as
>    necessary.
Perhaps the dream of being able to use GNU Emacs compile mode on
TeX/LaTeX and jump to the error line isn't too far off then.  (GNU Emacs
+ [La]TeX: two mints in one (:Certs advertisment))
-- 
Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM	+1-708-979-6364

spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) (06/28/90)

In article <7631@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) writes:

   >any way, unless you typeset in languages other than american english
							^^^^^^^^
					      (more smug britishness? :-)
garn -  cobblers, Don! it was just an observation that American is not
English (as opposed to english). 

   find that TeX 3.0 has dramatically changed my life. Since I've
   started using TeX 3.0, I've been promoted, have won the lottery,
   am constantly hounded by fabulous babes, and my shirts come back
I don't know about the babes (we don't have them in England, our only
babes are in cots), but the thing that has made most
difference to my life in the last year is Mittelbach and Schoepf's
font selection macros. I haven't consciously used 3.0's features at
all, since I had multi-language hyphenation anyway, courtesy of the
Finnish hacks.

     - TeX now has a parameter \emergencystretch, which allows
       better setting of difficult paragraphs (if TeX can't do a
       good job setting the paragraph, it tries inserting
maybe I will concede this one

     - I can check the \badness of the last box constructed.
come on, give us an example...

     - I can get the input line number (I haven't found a use for
       this yet.
quite

sebastian
--
Sebastian Rahtz                        S.Rahtz@uk.ac.soton.ecs (JANET)
Computer Science                       S.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bitnet)
Southampton S09 5NH, UK                S.Rahtz@sot-ecs.uucp    (uucp)