TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Alan Munn

00:11

Although I don't like poster veak's combative style, it's a fair point that the expl3 documentation is a bit all over the place, with file names that are effectively historical artefacts. It would indeed be nice if it were all collected in single place with a better name.

cfr

04:29

@AlanMunn I was also initially sympathetic. (Focus on 'initially'.) It's not clear whether the two users are the same but see chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/148802/…. Here's my answer to the user whose question you answered

5

A: Defining functions in Latex3

I find the documentation very good. The problem is figuring out where to find it. For an explanation of the syntax, see the documentation l3kernel. expl3.pdf and interface3.pdf both discuss the basic syntax. The latter is an enormous document but the explanation you want starts on page 2. Basical...

Alan Munn

@cfr I think they are the same user, and I have very little sympathy left, because every question ends with a tirade. So I'm done engaging with them any more.

cfr

@AlanMunn I honestly consider the questions spam at this point. They're just filling the site with slightly different versions of the same basic question. I guess there's no policy on that because the policies focus on questions rather than users?

Alan Munn

04:45

@cfr Yeah, it's tricky. They're not strictly spam, although they're all kind of duplicates, but just different enough.

cfr

@AlanMunn I probably should have said 'equivalent to spam' or something.

Alan Munn

@cfr Perfectly understood, after all, that's what makes 'consider' different from 'be'. :)

cfr

@AlanMunn Also the difference between moaning in chat and flagging ;).

Alan Munn

@cfr Yeah, I'm always a bit leery of moaning about specific users in chat. Not really the best practice I think.

cfr

05:02

@AlanMunn I agree. Non-engagement is probably the best response anyway.

(I agree it's bad practice, even though I've just done it.)

mickep

05:43

I see a frustrated user. Maybe some mod could tell him/her that the rants do not come out well and that they are not constructive.

CarLaTeX

05:56

@mickep After many years of experience, I understood that "ignoring" is the best technique in those cases.

mickep

@CarLaTeX Yes, that is likely the easy way out.

CarLaTeX

@mickep Exactly :D

mickep

(I don't know if there is any substance in the complaints, or if it is only trolling.)

CarLaTeX

@mickep The second one, in my opinion

mickep

06:40

@CarLaTeX yes, since nobody else is complaining ...

Joseph Wright

07:36

I am thinking of taking another stab at writing 'Programming in expl3': I think I see the outline structure. Probably a private repo to start with: people can ping me if they want to be added to access

2

Skillmon

@JosephWright interesting... But I guess I won't find the time. And my programming style might be peculiar.....

mickep

08:06

Oh, removing secret messages ...

Paulo Cereda

(removed)

Joseph Wright

@Skillmon At the level I'm thinking, I'm sure you can make suggestions :)

Rmano

08:28

@JosephWright Nice idea. I am a newbe with expl3, I can give feedback...

samcarter

@barbarabeeton "It seems to me that the Powers are headed in that direction." I'm not sure if they really have a thought through plan. Their frequent change of directions make a desperate impression to me, as if they just try everything.

David Carlisle

08:47

@PauloCereda not grey so breakfast is still on.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh no

Faheem Mitha

09:52

I wonder if anyone can advise which of these answers is the best one to accept. I realise that's an unorthodox request.

9

Q: changing the default color using the changes package

I've been giving the changes package a try, but have been unable to figure out how to change the default color for changes. There does not seem any obvious way to do so. I'm using version 5.2 in TeX Live 2009. The current version is 5.4 but not much has changed. For example, the default for added...

@FaheemMitha I think you should delete your own answer and propose an edit to this post instead. Or accept your own answer. It took me a while to scroll down… the currently accepted answer is not really helpful. — slhck Apr 7, 2017 at 9:58

I presume he is referring to the answer by Ekkart Kleinod at the bottom. That isn't really my answer.

Also, I thought answers were now sorted by upvotes.

David Carlisle

10:10

@FaheemMitha accepted answer first, then rest sorted by vote

samcarter

@FaheemMitha Users can choose a couple of different sort orders

yo'

10:41

Well, I don't agree on this one. The community (back in 2010) provided ideas for the header image, and SE then transferred it to the actual image, with comments from the community. Who "owns" such a thing I don't know.

And yes, the contributions are under CC-BY-SA, but creating the header is possibly on a similar level as using the answers, and nobody expects that everything built upon SE/SO content is under CC.

So my main question is: Would SE ever try to pose problems if anyone used `\{\TeX\}` as part of a logo elsewhere? To which I answer: that's very unlikely, and if they do, the fact…

mickep

11:13

@PauloCereda Oh no

David Carlisle

11:38

@PauloCereda arara java issues, shocking:-)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle blame @TeXnician :)

David Carlisle

May 30, 2019 at 19:05, by Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle having more Germans in the team to share the blame?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

Skillmon

13:41

I have a very great idea that should've been implemented in expl3: Every variable should've been defined \protected, and only by the accessors such as \tl_use:N should they really expand to their replacement text (with \tl_use:N using \exp_after:wN \prg_do_nothing: or similar to trick the \protected).

Faheem Mitha

@samcarter Would you care to comment whether the Ekkart Kleinod's answer should be accepted? Since you edited it, clearly you at least looked at it. :-)

Alan Munn

@FaheemMitha It seems the least useful of the answers given, but I don't know the package at all, so I can't comment on which one of the other answers makes the most sense to accept.

samcarter

@FaheemMitha I think it would be better if the information was unified. Either accept your own answer and flag the answer by @etg to be converted to comment or edit @etg's answer to include the quoted email. Normally, I'd favour the second approach to give some recognition to the author but they explicitly stated in the comment not to, so I would suggest the first approach in this specific case.

Skillmon

Or better, to use only two steps of expansion use \exp:w \exp_after:wN \exp_stop:

Faheem Mitha

@AlanMunn @samcarter Ah, I just realised that the accepted answer is actually by Ekkart Kleinod. :-) Let me change my question to - should I accept my own answer, which is actually a quote from Ekkart Kleinod? Currently at 1 upvote, for some reason.

@samcarter I guess you have already said what you think.

samcarter

13:54

@FaheemMitha you re-realised? Your comments sound as if you were aware of this in 2011 :)

@FaheemMitha yes, I already took this into account.

Faheem Mitha

@samcarter I certainly was aware of this in 2011. But it's currently not 2011. :-)

samcarter

@FaheemMitha yes, time flies :)

Faheem Mitha

Actually, the answer by Gonzalo Medina seems to be similar, but I'm not sure which is better. Medina's answer or the quoted EK answer which is nominally mine.

samcarter

@FaheemMitha You could make your answer a community wiki answer and accept it.

Faheem Mitha

@samcarter I could. Do you think that's a good idea? Won't it make it easier for the clueless to mess it up?

samcarter

14:05

@FaheemMitha I don't think editing is a big problem on tex.se. I usually use CM answers when the bulk of the work is by somebody else and for me this also lessen the bad feeling when accepting my own answer over somebody else', so I thought this could help your decision :)

Joseph Wright

14:51

@Skillmon One for a thought experiment, but likely 'performance' is the real issue

Faheem Mitha

16:06

@samcarter I don't mind getting upvotes for someone elses work. I'm not such a purist. They are just Imaginary Internet Points, anyway.

David Carlisle

16:42

@mickep optex?

mickep

@DavidCarlisle Haha, maybe! :P

Paulo Cereda

16:55

@DavidCarlisle I am afraid @TeXnician and I fixed the Java issue with arara :)

David Carlisle

17:30

@PauloCereda re-wrote it in emacs lisp?

Paulo Cereda

17:44

@DavidCarlisle Clojure. :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda closer, give it another iteration and you'll reach the lisp variant of choice.

@PauloCereda (dinner duck)

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh

@DavidCarlisle '(oh no)

David Carlisle

shouldn't the answer be that font people are all brilliant linguists and don't mind adding some French (@AlanMunn)?

13

Q: Why does English use the French "sans" for sans serif?

Is it because France had impactful printers and typecutters like the Garamonds and Jensons in the Renaissance? Or is it about being elegant and “Frenchified” when talking about something as peculiar and slightly arcane as typography? (Like Jacques in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, picking ...

etymology phrase-origin typography french

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh French ducks say coin coin

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda until they get covered a l'orange

Paulo Cereda

17:57

@DavidCarlisle oh no

Alan Munn

@DavidCarlisle Mais oui. Also I always have to explain why the command for an unnumbered example in gb4e is \sn.

cfr

20:42

@DavidCarlisle 'without' takes longer to type and they don't know Welsh?

I wish people who downvote would say why? What's the point of telling me my answer is bad in some way if you don't give me any idea what's wrong with it?

Alan Munn

20:56

@cfr Jealousy. "Your answer is bad because it exhibits a degree of sophistication I can only dream of having." :)

Ulrike Fischer

21:09

2

The speleologist Bär

2

Skillmon

21:21

@DavidCarlisle iirc. in original K&R C you could define main without any prefix (regarding tex.stackexchange.com/questions/697267/…)

@UlrikeFischer took me a while to spot Bär. Very nice photo!

@AlanMunn obviously because of the Latin "sine", \sn has to stand for `sine numerae" (my Latin is a bit rusty, I hope the case of "numerae" is correct -- or is "sine" with ablative and it should be "sine numera"?)

David Carlisle

@Skillmon yes although that was a predeclared name and argv specification so it's not really omitted, just didn't need to be explicit

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle also, just to be "that guy", in Python you can do square = lambda x: return x**2 and have something like a named function square()

(postfix != prefix)

It's been a while since I coded in Matlab, but I think something similar to the Python example is possible there, too.

David Carlisle

@Skillmon yes I nearly mentioned that tex doesn't have lambda expressions but he didn't seem to be using it as a lambda term just writing a function body in isolation and hoping it defined itself.

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle we could also start taking a look at the eso-langs :)

David Carlisle

@Skillmon yes most likely any langage that has lambda expressions

@Skillmon an excuse for an expkv advert, I see.

Skillmon

21:31

@DavidCarlisle I think the behaviour of \ekvcompile as something like \keys_procompile:Npnn is really handy, and it costs no overhead (at use-time).

@JosephWright you might as well call me in on the expl3 guide thingy... Worst thing that might happen is that I don't provide useful input and you sent an invite for naught.

@DavidCarlisle regarding tex.stackexchange.com/a/697276/117050: also, like described in earlier questions and answers thereof, \cs_new_protected:Npn would be the right thing to do since the macro can't be expandable (\newtheorem).

David Carlisle

@Skillmon yes that's why I used protected in the "idiomatic" version, with newcommand you get what you get... (I really don't know if its worth answering really, just seems to generate more questions and more user names)

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle yes, just wanted to point out that you might further specify the "idiomatic" version (but I'm not sure whether all the effort is worth it -- though if in doubt be helpful)

@DavidCarlisle lol, just when you were typing up your edit I typed my stuff in parentheses.

Seems like a user that wants to learn by asking, instead of by reading :(

David Carlisle

21:47

@Skillmon that wouldn't be so bad, it's just the constant sniping or outright rudeness in between the questions that gets a bit tiring

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle worsens the situation, imho. I find learning by only asking quite tiresome. I don't mind answering questions, but answering every question, seemingly without real effort in between... Well, it's a voluntary site, so I can just stop :)

cfr

23:28

@AlanMunn Hardly true of MY answers.

(Excepting forest.)

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$TeX - LaTeX$ TeX, LaTeX and Friends