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-% Copyright 2009,2010 The LaTeX Project
-\documentclass{ltnews}
-\PassOptionsToPackage{colorlinks}{hyperref}
-
-\usepackage{metalogo,ragged2e}
-
-\AtBeginDocument{
- \renewcommand{\LaTeXNews}{\LaTeX3~News}
- \RaggedRight
-}
-
-\usepackage{url,hologo}
-
-\publicationmonth{July}
-\publicationyear{2010}
-\publicationissue{4}
-
-\begin{document}
-\maketitle
-
-\noindent
-Now that we're back from the \TeX\ Users Group conference in San
-Francisco, it's time to discuss what's been going on over the last six months.
-Due to some extra travel plans after the conference, this issue is slightly
-late in coming out.
-
-
-\section{\textsf{expl3} in practice}
-
-Joseph Wright and Will Robertson have both released significant new versions
-of their packages, resp., \textsf{siunitx} and \textsf{fontspec}. These have
-been re-written in the \LaTeX3 programming language \textsf{expl3}, which we
-have discussed here previously. Using \textsf{expl3} for production code has
-been very successful, both in demonstrating that the concepts are sound and
-highlighting areas that still need some attention.
-% The \textsf{expl3}
-% code will continue to evolve as more people use it for their work.
-
-In the case of \textsf{fontspec}, \textsf{expl3} programming is being used to
-target \LaTeX\ running on either \XeTeX\ and \hologo{LuaTeX}. In the latter
-case, the package is a mixture of Lua code and \pkg{expl3} code; Will
-presented the \pkg{unicode-math} package at TUG~2010, which is developed in
-the same style.
-
-
-\section{New \textsf{xpackages}}
-
-Frank Mittelbach has started to work on a new experimental \LaTeX3 package
-\textsf{xhead} that provides templates for one of the most complex areas of
-document design: section headings and document divisions. This
-is the beginning of an ambitious idea to map out the requirements for
-typesetting most documents currently processed with \LaTeX.
-
-One of the challenges here is providing a ``natural'' design language for
-describing the two-dimensional spatial relationships of objects participating
-in the design, e.g., the placement of a heading number in relation to the
-heading title, a possible sub-title, etc. In answer to this challenge Frank
-developed the \textsf{xcoffin} package, which he presented at TUG~2010. It is
-designed as a high-level interface for placing and aligning boxes on a page,
-allowing a `designer's approach' for indicating the positional relationship
-between boxes. (A `coffin' is a box with handles.) As an example, it is
-possible to represent ideas such as `align the lower-left corner of box A with
-the upper-right corner of box B after rotating it ninety degrees', without
-having to calculate the intermediate positions.
-
-We expect a future version of \textsf{xcoffin} (after some further work on its
-interface layer and its internal implementation) to play a major role in all
-packages providing layout templates for higher-level document objects, such as
-table of contents designs, floats, etc.
-
-Finally,
-Joseph Wright has begun work with the current `galley' packages, producing the
-new, minimal, \textsf{xgalley} based on \textsf{xfm-galley} as a testbed for
-what we need and what will work.
-
-
-\section{Developments with \textsf{expl3}}
-
-Meanwhile, Joseph's \emph{also} been writing a new floating-point calculation
-module, called \textsf{l3fp}, for \pkg{expl3}. This module allows manipulation
-and calculation of numbers with a much larger range than \TeX\ allows
-naturally. The \textsf{l3fp} module has already been utilised in the
-\pkg{xcoffin} code for calculatations such as coordinate rotations and
-intersection points of vectors.
-
-The modules \pkg{l3io} and \pkg{l3file} have been revised, rethinking the way
-that read and write streams are dealt with. \TeX\ has a hard limit of sixteen
-input and output streams open at any one time, and the new implementation for
-\pkg{expl3} provides more flexibility in how they are allocated; there's now
-much less chance of running into a `\verb|No room for a new \read|' (or
-\verb|\write|) error.
-
-Sometimes we discuss ideas for \textsf{expl3} that \emph{don't} end up making
-it into the final code. One example of this is the concept of having `local
-registers' for integers, boxes, and so on, that do not survive outside of the
-group they are defined in (in contrast to Plain \TeX\ and \LaTeX, where
-allocators such as \verb|\newcount| and \verb|\newbox| are always global).
-Despite the scope for some small benefit, we decided that the extra complexity
-that the additional functions required, in both syntax and documentation, was
-not justified.
-
-
-\section{TUG 2010 reflections}
-
-% added most of it back in: -fmi
-
-%% Most of the active \LaTeX3 Project team were able to attend the TUG~2010
-%% conference and (for Will) meet everyone in person for the first time.
-
-Our interpretation of the broad themes discussed at the conference are that
-\TeX-based systems are still thriving and there are some big problems to solve
-with robust solutions to transform \LaTeX\ source, including mathematics, into
-a form such as HTML. While there are big pushes for standardising various aspects
-of the \LaTeX\ syntax, we also believe that it is \LaTeX's very
-flexibility---its inherently non-standardised markup---that has allowed it to
-survive for so many years. There is a delicate trade-off here between moving
-forward into more standards-based territory while also retaining the
-extensibility of the third-party package system.
-
-\end{document}
-
-
-