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+\let\BiBTeX\BibTeX
+\centerline{\bf \TeX89\ looks at \LaTeXbf\ tools}
+\smallskip\noindent
+Several discussion and `birds of a feather' groups were organised at the
+Karlsruhe \TeX89 meeting. Our discussion group considered indexing and
+bibliographies. We were in fair agreement over indexing. At the moment
+neither |makeindex| nor |makeidx| works on a PC for a document long enough to
+need an index: PC versions are needed. Other desirable enhancements include:
+international language support (such as \"a if |german.sty| has been used);
+options to specify how to alphabetize in languages where there is more than one
+convention (for example, there are three possible positions for \"a in German);
+certain constants to be made bigger; user's choice of delimiter characters, as
+with |\verb|. Other complaints apply more generally to software being passed
+around the \TeX\ community: it should be written in lines of no more than 72
+characters (because of email problems); only a very standard subset of C should
+be used; the authors should be accessible. A wish-list was prepared, which
+will be sent to the authors of |makeindex| and |makeidx| if we can find them.
+
+There was much less consensus over what is currently possible or easy in
+\BiBTeX\ and what are reasonable enhancements to ask for. Clearly, some people
+like programming in reverse Polish while others seem to find it extraordinarily
+difficult. We did agree that it would be useful to have matters as the ordering
+of the items, the type of key used, the ordering of words within the items, and
+the language used for words like `edition', could be easily changed
+independently. International language support is also needed.
+
+Although we agreed that all standard fields should be pre-declared in standard
+\BiBTeX, so that everyone uses them in the same way, we did not agree on what
+we thought was standard. Each of the following was supported by at least one
+person in the group: ISBN number; price of book; title of author, such as `Dr'
+or `S J'; `contribution to discussion of Important Paper X by J Smith' -- but
+are any of these really that standard? This led on to a discussion of whether
+it was really sensible to use \BiBTeX\ as a database, in which case it needs a
+front end to help secretaries input the entries (Anne Br\"uggemann-Klein has
+written one), or whether it is better to use an established database and get it
+to write |.bib| files (my preference).
+
+Our course, getting \BiBTeX\ to be all things to all people also involves making
+|\cite| more flexible. For some journals, |\cite| needs to put the title in a
+footnote on the first occurrence only; for others, it must put the author(s)
+and year in the text, but with punctuation depending on whether one is already
+inside parentheses; for yet others, if a book is cited only once the cited page
+number(s) must go in the bibliography rather than the text. Is it reasonable to
+be able to expect any usable program to be able to do all this? To my mind,
+having an editable |.bbl| file is a huge plus.
+
+Anne Br\"uggemann-Klein agreed to compile a wish-list and send it to Oren
+Patashnik before he finishes his current work on \BiBTeX. I hope we do not give
+the impression that we are not grateful for what has already been done.
+Although many people in the group sounded indignant that \BiBTeX\ would not
+do exactly what they wanted, it seems to me to be such an improvement over
+both `doing it yourself' (Lamport, Section 4.3.1) and using generic commands
+like |\writer| and |\paper|, defined in each style-file (cf. Spivak, Appendix B)
+that I, for one, am simply delighted that I have \BiBTeX.
+
+\rightline{\sl Rosemary Bailey}