summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Master/texmf-dist/doc/generic/FAQ-en/html/FAQ-TeXfuture.html
blob: 46cd3d122b4fcf17ae15eaf24ed5d6956c9f8fe9 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label TeXfuture</title>
</head><body>
<h3>What is the future of TeX?</h3>
<p/>Knuth has declared that he will do no further development of TeX;
he will continue to fix any bugs that are reported to him (though
bugs are rare).  This decision was made soon after
TeX version 3.0 was released; at each bug-fix release
the version number acquires one more digit, so that it tends to the
limit pi (at the time of writing, Knuth&#8217;s latest release
is version 3.1415926).  Knuth wants TeX to be frozen at
version pi when he dies; thereafter, no further changes
may be made to Knuth&#8217;s source.  (A similar rule is applied to Metafont;
its version number tends to the limit e, and currently
stands at 2.718281.)
<p/>Knuth explains his decision, and exhorts us all to respect it, in a
paper originally published in 
<a href="http://tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb11-4/tb30knut.pdf"><i>TUGboat</i> 11(4)</a>,
and reprinted in the 
<a href="http://www.ntg.nl/maps/pdf/5_34.pdf">NTG journal MAPS</a>.
<p/>There are projects (some of them long-term
projects: see, for example,
<a href="FAQ-LaTeX3.html">the LaTeX3 project</a>)

to build substantial
new macro packages based on TeX.  For the even longer term, there
are various projects to build a <em>successor</em> to TeX.  The
<a href="FAQ-etex.html">e-TeX</a> extension to TeX itself arose from such a
project (NTS).  Another pair of projects, which have delivered
all the results they are likely to deliver, is the related 
<a href="FAQ-omegaleph.html">Omega and Aleph</a>.  The 
<a href="FAQ-xetex.html">XeTeX system</a> is in principle still under
development, but is widely used, and the 
<a href="FAQ-luatex.html">LuaTeX project</a> (though with another two years of
development scheduled) has already delivered a system that is quite
useful.
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=TeXfuture">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=TeXfuture</a>
</body>