TeX or not TeX



Martin RUBEY wrote:
> I strongly disagree with the idea not to use TeX and instead produce 
> Postscript: This would imply that I would have to retype the whole thing 
> to get it properly into my article. I find it easier to adjust output 
> rather than to retype it! 
I agree
Furthermore, why do you think it would be easier
> for maxima to do the formatting? 
I disagree.
Maxima knows that   diff(f,x)  semantically, could be displayed
as
    f
     x

or  df/dx
or
      df
     ----
      dx

This info is not available to TeX.  If it sees one of these forms
it does not know that it is a derivative, and that this can be
displayed conventionally in various ways.

After all, quite some years went into the
> TeX development, I would find it rather sad to reinvent the wheel. I do 
> not understand why it would be easier for maxima to decide how to break 
> lines than for TeX. It is probably that maxima knows better to *rewrite* 
> stuff, i.e. write 
> 
> (a+b+c)/(x+y+z)
> 
> instead of
> 
> a+b+c
> -----
> x+y+z
> 
> but in this case, maxima could just provide both forms and let TeX decide 
> which fits nicer on the paper...
> 
The number of possible forms makes the size of the expression sent to
TeX grow exponentially.
For each letter in the above, say  b,
let b=r^s,  where r and s are expressions.

Allow TeX to chose
      s
     r

or  expt(r,s).

a combinatorial explosion...

RJF


> Martin
> 
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