Re: [help-texinfo] preferred way to change output for a macro

[Robert Dodier]

On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Karl Berry <address@hidden> wrote:

> The whole meaning of "intensional" typesetting is that you don't
> care what the output is.

No, that's not what it means. It means that display is separated
from meaning, interpretation, etc. Display certainly still matters,
it's just not tied up with other stuff. If I really didn't care
about the output, I wouldn't bother with typesetting.

> All output customizations are a break with the original idea of "say
> what it is and not how you want it to look".

I think you're letting the tail wag the dog. Variables (or code or
paragraphs or whatever) don't become something different just
because I want to display them differently. If there are @var in
your document and @myvar in mine, do those represent
different things? If I change @var to @myvar in mine, what
about the meaning or interpretation of those things has changed?

best,

Robert Dodier