Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: allprose missing file

[C Y]

--- root <address@hidden> wrote:

> CY,
> 
> i started a reply to your latex work a while ago but i guess 
> i never sent the email. broken down to its essence i have 
> objections to using conditional code in a latex document. if
> we start down that path we end up with the whole "C" define 
> horror show. C introduced #ifdef and #include .h, both of 
> which have caused endless amounts of grief in my life. a fair 
> percent of my porting problems revolve around these seemingly 
> simple ideas which are the root of a lot of evil. because they
> are so pervasive at this point everyone seems to think they 
> are useful. "in the small" they are but once you have a large,
> complex system they collapse. 

OK.  Would it be alright if I post an example of what I have done, if
nothing else to outline the issues I would like to address?  I'm all
for better ways to solve them (lord knows I don't know the best ones!)
but I would like to describe what I have done and why, in case there is
any merit in outlining the issues.
 
> i know this will turn into another point of controversy but
> before  you turn on the flames try following (by hand) the
> expansion of your include files under all possible combination
> of define flags and you'll see that it is hopeless.

No flames.  (I hope I haven't been flaming!)  So far I have only three
cases in all - dvi vs. pdf, large margins vs. small, and book vs.
article.  I'm not sure I'm following what you mean by "possible
combination of define flags" - there are only two cases, article and
book.  Each article has its own preamble file, which will probably be a
standard file in 99% of the cases, and the book is responsible for its
own logic.  Maybe I described what I had in mind wrong?

> conditional latex, as monty python used to say, is "right out".

If anyone is interested I can demonstrate what I have done and why -
since I'm no LaTeX expert perhaps I'm approaching it the wrong way, and
I would be quite happy to be educated on the right way :-).

I suppose I'm about due to throw up the latest state of the Units and
Dimensions paper (the non-code part) - it's not done yet but some
progress has been made.  I'll try to get it online maybe Sunday,
depending on the holiday activities.  Since that's also my testbed for
LaTeX it will server two purposes.

Oh, related question - is there a place where I can upload example pdf
and dvi documents? 

Cheers,
CY


        
                
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