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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/6_3/glean.tex |
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diff --git a/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/6_3/glean.tex b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/6_3/glean.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..8c074037aa --- /dev/null +++ b/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/6_3/glean.tex @@ -0,0 +1,62 @@ +\title{Malcolm's gleanings} +\author{Malcolm Clark} +\begin{Article} +\section{In consistency} +`A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds'. That tireless +defender of \TeX\ Allan Reese made no mention of \TeX\ whatsoever in +his last article published in the \textsl{Times Higher} +(March 17th?) demonstrating his immunity +from the charge of hobgoblin. That's fine this once, but if he wants his +accolades to accrue he must adhere to the one true path. + +\section{\textsc{Minse}} +Browsing through the World Wide Web Consortium's maths-related pages, I came +across \textsc{Minse}. Described by its author, Ka-Ping Yee, +as a `simple, extensible +way to express mathematics' it does seem to contain many interesting and useful +ideas. Besides taking a semantic description of an equation and rendering it +into several different forms, it may also render it into audio (with some +acknowledgement to T V Raman). Ping also says that a \textsc{Minse} expression +may be turned into a form which is understood by \TeX. If you want to know +more, point your Web browser at \url{www.lfw.org/math/demo.html}. + +\section{Times change} +Our chairman, now the proud possessor of a copy of +`\TeX\ and Metafont, New Directions in Typesetting', pointed out +the following quotation to me: +\begin{quote} + ``Those of you who wish to define control sequences should know that + \TeX{} has further rules about them, namely that many different + spellings of the same control sequence may be possible. This fact + allows \TeX{} to handle control sequences quite efficiently; and + \TeX's usefulness is not seriously affected, because new control + sequences aren't needed very often.'' +\end{quote} +Robin adds, +\begin{quotation} +``It's plain that Knuth hadn't at the time yet discussed life, the +universe and everything with Lamport! + +The rules themselves are indeed horrendous, and go out of their way to +put automatic generation of control sequence names pretty much out of +the question.''\end{quotation} +\section{\TUB} +It was good to see \TUB\ recently. I did note that there has been a minor +presentational change to the journal. The spine now merely notes the volume and +number, omitting the month and year. +It does make it that bit more difficult to see how +late it is. Wise move, if ominous, just as it seemed to be getting on time. +Not that I +can really say anything about timeliness, the edition of \BV\ that I edited +took an awfully long time to get through the process. I do think the content +was good. Thanks to those who contributed. On the subject of journals, let me +commend Don Hosek's \textsl{Serif} to you, now on edition 4 (see \BV\ 5.1). It's +early preciousness seems to be evening out, and the proof reading has similarly +improved. Since it is set in \TeX, it is especially fascinating. Just how does +Don manage to do all those things which we never expect \TeX\ to do. It is a +great pity that he did not provide the article for the Santa Barbara +\TUB\ Proceedings (it should have been in 15(3)) +from the talk he gave there, where he discussed ways of +bending \TeX\ to his will. Hint? + +\end{Article} |