Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth?
It's also worth remembering that at that time not everyone was guaranteed to have access to e-tex so it wasn't a good idea to write a macro package that depended on it. I believe it's only fairly recently that e-tex has become standard for LaTeX? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robin Fairbairns Sent: 09 July 2007 13:23 To: Werner Icking Music Archive Subject: Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth? Jean-Pierre Coulon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Robin Fairbairns wrote: > > > [...] > > no: registers are things like boxes, counters, lengths and the like. in > > knuth's original code, there were a maximum of 256 of each; in e-tex > > 65535 are available. it was always easy to run out of registers in > > original tex -- pictex was a good candidate for that; it wasn't just > > musixtex. > > Since I find PICTEX.TEX from 06/11/1989 in my EMTEX distribution, I believe > that in this distribution from 1997, the same as Daniel's, the register > limit had already been expanded, but Daniel was not aware of this! nope. pictex has been around since forever. however, it uses large amounts of registers, and with latex or context it was always prone to running out (there are several "solutions" to this problem, both under latex and under context -- making pictex use scratch registers instead of allocating its own, etc). without those packages, you were always in danger of finding you couldn't fit anything _else_ in with pictex; even with them there was always a chance of problems. e-tex dates from before the time of your pictex distribution, but i don't believe eberhard ever provided an e-tex version in his system, so etex.sty wouldn't have helped. robin ___ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.daimi.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music ___ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.daimi.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth?
On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Christof Biebricher wrote: > But for a book or even a larger brochure, it would be crazy not to > use LATeX. No TeXpert has the time to reinvent what hundreds of > developpers hane done. At the risk of ending up off-topic, I'd say the opposite of that is true - a book takes a long time to develop (by which I mean, 'tex') and tends to need fine control over exactly how things are presented, because the layout of a book should not be formulaic. In my experience (limited, in terms of LaTeX, at least) the effort required to write LaTeX styles and to customise the finer points of LaTeX typesetting justify writing a TeX format for larger projects - I find LaTeX useful for one-off smaller documents or when having to comply with someone else's standard (e.g. for publication). Bear in mind that the combined TeX format for The TeXbook and The MFbook (which must certainly rank amongst the most complex books ever TeX'd in terms of feature coverage!) are based on a 715 line format file. On my system, latex.ltx is nearly 8000 lines :o) David (who is not a LaTeX-hater but just prefers to hack in TeX...) ___ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.daimi.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth?
Jean-Pierre Coulon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Robin Fairbairns wrote: > > > [...] > > no: registers are things like boxes, counters, lengths and the like. in > > knuth's original code, there were a maximum of 256 of each; in e-tex > > 65535 are available. it was always easy to run out of registers in > > original tex -- pictex was a good candidate for that; it wasn't just > > musixtex. > > Since I find PICTEX.TEX from 06/11/1989 in my EMTEX distribution, I believe > that in this distribution from 1997, the same as Daniel's, the register > limit had already been expanded, but Daniel was not aware of this! nope. pictex has been around since forever. however, it uses large amounts of registers, and with latex or context it was always prone to running out (there are several "solutions" to this problem, both under latex and under context -- making pictex use scratch registers instead of allocating its own, etc). without those packages, you were always in danger of finding you couldn't fit anything _else_ in with pictex; even with them there was always a chance of problems. e-tex dates from before the time of your pictex distribution, but i don't believe eberhard ever provided an e-tex version in his system, so etex.sty wouldn't have helped. robin ___ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.daimi.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth?
On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Robin Fairbairns wrote: > [...] > no: registers are things like boxes, counters, lengths and the like. in > knuth's original code, there were a maximum of 256 of each; in e-tex > 65535 are available. it was always easy to run out of registers in > original tex -- pictex was a good candidate for that; it wasn't just > musixtex. Since I find PICTEX.TEX from 06/11/1989 in my EMTEX distribution, I believe that in this distribution from 1997, the same as Daniel's, the register limit had already been expanded, but Daniel was not aware of this! Jean-Pierre Coulon [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.daimi.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth?
Cornelius C. Noack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Jean-Pierre Coulon wrote:
>
> > Daniel Taupin's last versions of the MusiXTeX documentation
> > discouraged making large scores under LaTeX, because of the lack
> > of 'registers' - Don's version is in a milder tone. Yet I
> > managed to make a large score under LaTeX with the
> > 1995 EMTeX distribution.
> >
> > Nothing wrong happened. I use quite a few \def commands. What is
> > meant by a 'TeX register'? I've made a "three pass" batch file
> > similar to the
> > manual's MUSIXTEX.BAT to have musixflx make the right spacings.
> >
> > Are these warnings against using LaTeX true, or a myth? The LaTeX
> > source of the MusiXTeX manual contains "I hate LaTeX" somewhere.
> >
> > My source file is too big for this list (200K).
>
> The warnings against LaTeX were true when Taupin first wrote
> MusixTeX; nowadays (2007!) most of them have indeed become a myth.
> To be more specific: the limited number of 'registers'
> ('registers' in this context is simply a name for TeX-specific
> memory slots for things like TeX command names etc. -- for details
> cf. the TeXbook)
no: registers are things like boxes, counters, lengths and the like. in
knuth's original code, there were a maximum of 256 of each; in e-tex
65535 are available. it was always easy to run out of registers in
original tex -- pictex was a good candidate for that; it wasn't just
musixtex.
the issue about numbers of command names and the total size of macro
bodies, etc., is solvable in knuth's tex -- as witness you managing a
large document in bigtex under emtex.
> are no longer a problem with present TeX
> implementations such as 'extended TeX' (which is now the default
> for MikTeX, e.g.). There is, however, quite a number of TeX
> commands that are redefined in LaTeX, and this can lead to some
> incompatibilities. For some more detail on the whole question cf.
> my PMX tutorial
> http://icking-music-archive.org/software/pmx/pmxccn.pdf ,
> Ch. C 4: ''PMX and LaTeX'' .
you might mention etex.sty in your document; it's what makes those extra
registers available to the ordinary programmer.
> Quite another issue seems to be, IMHO, the "I hate LaTeX" issue.
> Hate is a very personal thing, and usually there is nothing you
> can do about it. The ideosyncrasies are, to my mind, quite
> analogous to those between GUI and mouse tick lovers on the one
> side, and aficionados of the command-line way of running computers
> ...
>
> Let's try to keep the MusixTeX world free from useless fights of
> that kind!
hear! hear!
(personally, i would like to see musixtex silently "just work" with
plain tex, latex, or context. that will of course include hacking
around with various bits and pieces, notably font selection. iirc,
daniel's font selection code was enough to make any ordinary programmer
wince -- has it been replaced yet?)
robin
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Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth?
On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Jean-Pierre Coulon wrote: > Daniel Taupin's last versions of the MusiXTeX documentation discouraged > making > large scores under LaTeX, because of the lack of 'registers' - Don's version > is in a milder tone. Yet I managed to make a large score under LaTeX with > the > 1995 EMTeX distribution. > > Nothing wrong happened. I use quite a few \def commands. What is meant by > a 'TeX register'? I've made a "three pass" batch file similar to the > manual's MUSIXTEX.BAT to have musixflx make the right spacings. > > Are these warnings against using LaTeX true, or a myth? The LaTeX source of > the MusiXTeX manual contains "I hate LaTeX" somewhere. > Dear Jean-Pierre, I think, you are completely right, the newer TeX versions do not complain about lack of registers, because TeX is in most installation eTeX with more registers and memory. Furthermore, LATeX takes all TeX primitives and many plain TeX commands. In my opinion, warnings against the use of LATeX as a conflict with musixtex are probably outdated. However, like many other people working with TeX for a long time, it took a while until I switched to LATeX. I had so many TeX macro collections that fulfilled my needs and it is a lot easier to adapt a TeX macro collection to a new layout than to redef all those LATeX registers. It needed the demand of journals to switch to LATeX. So I understand the reluctance of Daniel to recommend LATeX. But for a book or even a larger brochure, it would be crazy not to use LATeX. No TeXpert has the time to reinvent what hundreds of developpers hane done. pmx produces a TeX file, IMO for good reason, because for most cases plain TeX is fully adequate. I modified the Gottesdienstordnung described in WIMA, but used TeX instead of LATeX. Two or hree columns on a page is not a reason to take LATeX, a plain TeX macro can produce it just as well. Furtheremore, I find the rather rigid LATeX formatting a disadvantage for music typesetting. One would have to write a special musix.cls to get a good environment for typesetting with LATeX. Regards, Christof -- Prof. Dr. Christof K. Biebricher Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry D-37070 Göttingen Tel: +49 (551) 201 1442 FAX: +49 (551) 201 1578 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]___ TeX-music mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.daimi.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
Re: [TeX-Music] MusiXTeX hates LaTeX: true or myth?
On Mon, 9 Jul 2007, Jean-Pierre Coulon wrote:
> Daniel Taupin's last versions of the MusiXTeX documentation
> discouraged making large scores under LaTeX, because of the lack
> of 'registers' - Don's version is in a milder tone. Yet I
> managed to make a large score under LaTeX with the
> 1995 EMTeX distribution.
>
> Nothing wrong happened. I use quite a few \def commands. What is
> meant by a 'TeX register'? I've made a "three pass" batch file
> similar to the
> manual's MUSIXTEX.BAT to have musixflx make the right spacings.
>
> Are these warnings against using LaTeX true, or a myth? The LaTeX
> source of the MusiXTeX manual contains "I hate LaTeX" somewhere.
>
> My source file is too big for this list (200K).
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Jean-Pierre Coulon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
The warnings against LaTeX were true when Taupin first wrote
MusixTeX; nowadays (2007!) most of them have indeed become a myth.
To be more specific: the limited number of 'registers'
('registers' in this context is simply a name for TeX-specific
memory slots for things like TeX command names etc. -- for details
cf. the TeXbook) are no longer a problem with present TeX
implementations such as 'extended TeX' (which is now the default
for MikTeX, e.g.). There is, however, quite a number of TeX
commands that are redefined in LaTeX, and this can lead to some
incompatibilities. For some more detail on the whole question cf.
my PMX tutorial
http://icking-music-archive.org/software/pmx/pmxccn.pdf ,
Ch. C 4: ''PMX and LaTeX'' .
Quite another issue seems to be, IMHO, the "I hate LaTeX" issue.
Hate is a very personal thing, and usually there is nothing you
can do about it. The ideosyncrasies are, to my mind, quite
analogous to those between GUI and mouse tick lovers on the one
side, and aficionados of the command-line way of running computers
...
Let's try to keep the MusixTeX world free from useless fights of
that kind!
ccn.
--
.
Prof.Dr. Cornelius C. Noack Phones:
Inst. f. Theor. Physik FB 1 office : +49 (421) 218-2427
Universit"at Bremen secretary: -2422
Otto-Hahn-Allee Fax : -4869
D - 28334 Bremen home : +49 (421) 34 22 36
Fax: 346 7872
E-mail: noack at itp.uni-bremen.de or ccnoack at mailaps.org
WWW-page: www.itp.uni-bremen.de/~noack
.
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