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author | Norbert Preining <norbert@preining.info> | 2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900 |
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committer | Norbert Preining <norbert@preining.info> | 2019-09-02 13:46:59 +0900 |
commit | e0c6872cf40896c7be36b11dcc744620f10adf1d (patch) | |
tree | 60335e10d2f4354b0674ec22d7b53f0f8abee672 /usergrps/uktug/baskervi/3_1/tug93.tex |
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diff --git a/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/3_1/tug93.tex b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/3_1/tug93.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..01d3892944 --- /dev/null +++ b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/3_1/tug93.tex @@ -0,0 +1,161 @@ +\title{An Informal Review of TUG '93: July 26th--30th, Aston, Birmingham UK} +\author[Kees van der Laan]{Kees van der Laan\\Dutch \TeX\ Users Group} +\begin{article} + + +\section{Highlights} +\begin{itemize} +\item Announcement of \LaTeX2.9e; the {\em \LaTeX\ Companion} book + will be available in the fall, which contains among other items, the + NFSS2 documentation +\item NTS: organizational and technical issues were surveyed +\item Y\&Y's scalable outline fonts +\item Adobe's Acrobat, and PDF (portable document format), + demoed by Doug Henderson (Blue Sky Research, and Adobe $\beta$-tester) +\item Tutorials: What is \LaTeX?, Flavours of \TeX, Virtual fonts, + all for free +\item Greenwade's CTAN: Comprehensive \TeX\ Archive Network, released +\item The {\sl TUGly Telegraph\/} spread the news (a mini + conference newspaper) +\end{itemize} + +This report\footnote{Cut down for inclusion in \BV; a fuller version +will be published in MAPS, the journal of the Dutch \TeX\ Users +Group.} contains the main issues as perceived by the author. The +idea is to get the flavour and my view of the good items across, at +the expense of completeness. + +\section{Introduction} +The meeting of the organized \TeX\ Users of the year was TUG '93 at +Aston. It attracted some 165 participants, with a few from +financially diasadvantaged countries, thanks to a bursary fund. Aston +campus is pleasantly located near the centre of Birmingham, Brum for +short. A rich variety of courses was offered before and after the +conference. In general the program offered nice presentations, +workshops, panels and the like, with the vendor booths fewer in number +than usual, Blue Sky Research being sadly absent because of being +informed too late. Despite this, to attend the conference was a real +thrill. Much attention was paid to details; for example every badge +contained a nice proverb, not forgetting the superb logo. In general +all was done by creative and playful minds. Next to the lecture room +there was a discussion lounge---with among other things some computers +with e-mail and FTP facilities, such that participants could read +their e-mail and exchange files---and a vendor booth, alias lounge, +for display of materials brought along by TUG and the various LUGs. + +\section{Conference} +For the most it was a one-stream schedule. Along with the program we +obtained a copy of the pre-proceedings, which be published in \TUB\ +14.3. Prior to the conference there were the free tutorials: `What is +\LaTeX\ all about?', `Flavours of \TeX', and `Virtual fonts'. During +the conference we had workshops about MakeIndex, \BibTeX, and virtual +fonts. And there were ample course offerings before and after the +conference. + +In the next section attention is paid to the highlights neglecting +the day-to-day sequence of events as well as the session titles. + +\subsection{Keynotes} +The keynotes were: Jackowski and Ry\'cko---detailing what happens at +the beginning and at the end of a paragraph; Christina Thiele---about +the future of \TeX\ and TUG; and Joachim Lammarsch---presenting his +view on the historical and organisational issues related to NTS, the +New Typesetting System. Later Phil Taylor---the technical director of +the project---aptly complemented this with the technical aspects. A +nice example of international cooperation. + +\subsection{Presentations} +\begin{itemize} +\item Michael Doob's paper about the practical use of virtual fonts + was very illuminating. Related to this was the work of + Alan Jeffrey for manipulating {\em vpl\/} files. + +\item It was rumoured that John Plaice's $\Omega$-\TeX\ will be a nice + extension of \TeX. It is difficult to overlook its virtues or its + impact. + +\item Derick Wood's theoretical model of tables was very intriguing. + The burning question in here is whether we can develop something + like normal specification and transformation to the clearest + formatted represention (semi)automatically. + +\item Daniel Taupin surprised us all with a new aspect of his \TeX\ + work: \TeX\ and Metafont working together to produce maps. Later, + and separately, he also reported about new developments in + Music\TeX. + +\item Martin Bryan's Guide to DSSSL was a bit too theoretical. Upon + request he assured us that this extension is there mainly to handle + so-called active documents. + +\item Michel Lavaud preceded his As\TeX\ lecture by some analogies of + the \TeX\ language with natural language---both ambiguous and + `dangerous'---and with the FORTRAN language---both stable, but + deficient. The latter has gained a firm place within the scientific + work desk, despite its deficiences and other imperfections. + +\item Laurent Siebenmann in one of his papers proposed a new method for + handling the spacing around in-line math. + +\item Roger Hunter discussed {\em Scientific Word} and + emphasized that the future of \TeX\ has all to do + with better user interfaces. It is fun to remember all the + various items people have prophesied to be essential for the + future of \TeX. At the user as well as the language level. + +\item W\l odek Bzyl lectured about the use of literate programming + tools to build upon other work: \TUB\ style customization via change + files and pretty printing of \TeX\ code, along with providing an + index. By this approach the styles of the GUST bulletin make use of + the experience embodied in the \TUB\ style files, with GUST's + modifications easily added. Really a sensible approach and worthy of + being studied and followed by other editors. + +\item Berthold Horn dwelled upon the paucity of math fonts ready for + use with \TeX, and a checklist to counteract this phenomenon. + A very lucid and scholarly paper. + +\item George Greenwade made the CTAN (Comprehensive \TeX\ Archive + Network) go public. A quantum leap! + +\item At the macro writing level we had Jonathan Fine's ``Finite + State Automata in \TeX'' and my ``Syntactic Sugar'', and ``Sorting + within \TeX''. The syntactic sugar paper also touches upon the + software engineering aspects of \TeX\ macro writing. + + \item Very intriguing was Mary Dyson's paper about teaching + typography, as a spin-off of the DIDOT project. It has + all to do with getting your priorities right; don't sub-optimize! + In essence the issues relevant to Electronic Publishing were + presented in the right order. +\item Richard Southall elaborated on his `buses and weirdness' effects +when using \TeX, naively. I'm hoping that this paper will finally +appear in print. +\end{itemize} + +\section{LUGs} +Only CyrTUG and Ukraine TUG (officially to be founded in the + autumn) talked in public about their history and revealed their +plans. Both will have autumn meetings, open for the \TeX\ community at +large to attend. + +\section{Upcoming, or go where the action is} +For next year the working idea is to have Euro\TeX\ '94 organized by +GUST in Poland. TUG '94 will be in Santa Barbara, TUG '95 in Florida, +and TUG '96 in Europe again. And in the meantime the autumn is crowded +with meetings: Ukraine TUG,\footnote{At the moment of writing this +report we received the sad news that their leader Yuri Melnichuk has +passed away, due to a heart attack.} CyrTuG (early October), the +Nordic and NTG's November meetings, next to DANTE's regular and cosy +Stammtisch, \ldots, and GUST in the spring: watch out for the calendar +in TUGboat. + + +\section{Conclusion} +Meeting people and stimulating each other---that is what +conferences are for. This was a particularly good one. + +Thanks to you all! +\end{article} + + |