2. Replace the programs that translate LaTeX into other formats with
programs doing the same job, but written in Lisp.
This is more my area of interest, and I don't know that anyone else
shares it - I think Tim might be innocent here ;-). However, since
this wouldn't even be VISIBLE to anyone unless they were calling the
typesetting tools by hand (even now, doesn't the build wrap that in the
document script?) I don't see why anyone should be worried by
discussing the possibility.
You have probably noticed that any current program that translates LaTeX
into some other format treats only a subset of the TeX language. TeX4ht
does a very good job here and it has one big advantage. It uses TeX (the
program) itself to interpret the input. I'm pretty sure that you could
even produce a LISP format of your LaTeX input if you use tex4ht and
translate to xml (which is just a slightly different way of putting the
parens---so basically you have the tree structure of LISP).
Cliff, I don't know why it is better to write everything anew in LISP.
Use the tools at hand and build something that can actually compete with
current CAS (plural). We fight with the future and haven't even reached
the present.
Tim, my statement is in no way against your visions. In fact, I *very*
much like that you every now and then tell us to lift our heads and look
ahead of time. But still, we first need something reasonably good so
that Axiom becomes more attractive to more developers. We desparately
need more people.
Ralf
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