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From: monardo@renoir.Berkeley.EDU (Pat Monardo)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: General Info on Common TeX
Message-ID: <16731@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 2-Jan-87 18:36:33 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.16731
Posted: Fri Jan  2 18:36:33 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Jan-87 21:36:56 EST
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: monardo@renoir.Berkeley.EDU (Pat Monardo)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Here are some facts concerning Common TeX.
Distribution is the problem of course,
but many questions have come up on other issues.
When I mentioned that Common TeX preserves WEB
macros, they are actually cpp macros, and follow
cpp conventions, not WEB conventions.
Common TeX uses all the good properties of C operators.
Major points here concern the evaluation of boolean expressions.
if C1 then if C2 then a_out is converted to
if (C1 && C2) a_out(); and the precedence
relationships of ||, &&, <, +, etc., are thoroughly abused,
(i like it that way). It's surprising how often the
if (C1 && C2 || C3 && C4) pattern occurs in programming,
and C's &&-|| precedence is a real luxury here.
I know this sounds like lang.c stuff, but enjoy the program.
After all, I am distributing the source to be read.
The experiences in language translation are as 
important to me as the work of typesetting.
There are few library/system trips here.
So when ports to other compilers are attempted, I am
very interested in following/assisting the effort.


	pat