Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia
> From: Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>
> Date: 20 Jul 2002 23:32:48 +0200
>
> I still think it can be viewed as excessive. Let me explain.
>
> Imagine that I want to create a typesetting system that behaves just
> like LaTeX on all input files, except that input files that say
> something like
>
> \documentclass[12pt]{article}
>
> will actually be typeset with a 13-point font (and similarly for the
> other standard classes). Note that I have deliberately selected an
[the long saga is omitted]
> That sends me messing with the class-loading code in the kernel. I do
> not protest about having to call my kernel something else than
> latex.ltx even if I didn't change its functional contents, and nothing
> references the kernel by name anyway, so the renaming cascade stops
> here - unless I've overlooked some other filename interaction.
>
You do not need to this. A simple solution is to change in your
changed kernel the lines:
\def\@loadwithoptions#1#2#3{%
\expandafter\let\csname opt@#3.#1\expandafter\endcsname
\csname opt@\@currname.\@currext\endcsname
#2{#3}}
to the lines
\def\@loadwithoptions#1#2#3{%
\expandafter\let\csname opt@#3.#1\expandafter\endcsname
\csname opt@\@currname.\@currext\endcsname
#2{#3}%
\DeclareOption{12pt}{\renewcommand\@ptsize{3}}}
and create 13pt.clo with the appropriate contents.
>
> Personally I am megalomanic enough to believe I have memoized
> sufficiently large parts of The TeXbook to be able to make an attempt,
> and perhaps even have it work after a few days of debugging. But I
> certainly don't believe that everyone capable of changing a few
> numbers in the .clo file will be able to do it. So the morale I'm
> aiming at is that the renaming rule will prevent some people from
> doing modifications that they would otherwise be technically competent
> to do.
I do not think that "freedom of modification" should mean "ease of
modification by people with superficial knowledge of the
language". The task of creating non-quite-LaTeX *is* difficult in any
real situation. The requirement that it must be easily done by people
who do not know TeX seems excessive to me.
--
Good luck
-Boris
"Imitation is the sincerest form of television."
-- The New Mighty Mouse
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
Reply to: