@marmot I'm always surprised at how little the CS students know of it.

@AlanMunn Yes, but this is very different IMHO. Of course Word can refer to tables and so on but once you have several equations you are doomed. (I once had a very long document with many equations in word, and what happened, of course, was "Error: Word cannot open Word document". Irrecoverable. So I quit.)

@marmot No, it's not different at all. It's exactly the same in linguistics. Word can't handle it at all.

@AlanMunn Yes, sure. But in the math department it very popular. I have not seen a single talk that was not beamer.

@AlanMunn Good luck with typesetting the equations ;-)

@AlanMunn Can you do something like \stackrel{(\ref{eq:xyz})}{=} in word?

@marmot Well as I say, the content is just text, so that's not difficult, but the numbering and cross-referencing is identical to equation numbering. But that's easy to turn into LaTeX from Word as long as people don't try to use their built in numbering systems.

@AlanMunn Yes, sure, but this is as good as exchanging ascii text, which is what I said in my answer.

@marmot No of course not. But I'm not defending Word, just saying that from a practical point of view, you let people work with things they're comfortable with. And for long time Word users, "plain ascii text" isn't really a thing. And they're not really identical.

@AlanMunn I am not doubting that. I still do not get the purpose of the question. If people agree on writing their article in LaTeX they need to know some basic stuff, and if they don't then they don't.

@marmot But that's the point. That isn't the reality of collaborations. So the question is about how you deal with the mixture.

@AlanMunn So it is a sociology question? ;-)

@marmot No, it's a practical question that derives from a sociological fact.

@AlanMunn But then I still stay with my opinion. If they want to write a LaTeX document they need to know some basics. If one of them wants to write a LaTeX document and the others don't, there are two possibilities. The better possibility is that the one who wants to use LaTeX is the Prof and the others are students, so they have to learn LaTeX. The more complicated situation is when the student wants to use LaTeX but the prof doesn't, in which case the student has to find a better advisor. ;-)

@marmot And what about (which I'm talking about) the situation where we're all profs?

@AlanMunn Ask a student to save the word stuff in ascii and embed it in a LaTeX document.

@marmot I've seen my students' LaTeX. No thanks. :)

@AlanMunn You need better students. (One of mine converted me to TikZ. ;-)

@marmot The pstricks world mourns its loss. :) Although given your constant answer troubles, it's probably a very good thing you don't answer pstricks questions. ;-)

@AlanMunn I do not have answer troubles. ;-) The pstricks era has ended some time ago IMHO. In the old days I really loved it but it has been superseded by TikZ (and is also not maintained in the optimal way IMHO).

@marmot Yes, I agree its time is really up. And after having written this answer I'm impressed that anyone still uses xy-pic over tikz-cd.

@AlanMunn Well, one could defend it because presumably you will not have any problems when compiling it to dvi only. However, there is absolutely no analogous argument for pstricks AFAIK.

@marmot True. Also I suspect that its syntax is so compact that for users who use it a lot it can be extremely efficient once you know it well.

@AlanMunn And you gain a bit on compilation time. Which is again not true with pstricks. But what really gave it IMHO the final blow is that some things only work when compiled with xelatex and others only with the chain latex -> dvi -> ps ( -> pdf). What if you want to combine such things?

@marmot Yes I agree. Herb claims that XeTeX always works, but it's not true.

@AlanMunn No, it isn't. And he is aware of this because there were questions on this which he answered in the usual way: do this and that (without any explanation whatsoever).

@AlanMunn You can see this from this post and the fact that a certain user did not want to use \pstThreeDPut. The reason is that it does not work with xelatex (at the time I wrote my answer I didn't know about xelatex.... ;-) so he preferred to use an ellipse which has to be adjusted by hand....

@AlanMunn -- I've got a question for you that I'd rather not post publicly. Can you send me email so that I'll know how to reach you?

@barbarabeeton Sure.

@thymaro and @DavidCarlisle -- For quite a while, I've been wondering whether it might be a good idea to subdivide the exception list (from which ushyphex is derived) into more than the two sections now presented. (1. "English" words, i.e. words found in Webster's 3rd International. 2. Non-English words and proper names.) Chemical names are showing up with increasing frequency, and are in general problematic, so that might be a third subcategory. Opinions?

@barbarabeeton Except I don't seem to have your email any more. You can send mail to me using amunn at msu dot edu

@AlanMunn -- Thanks. Sent.

@CarLaTeX For a normal user I would not have made this remark, but this one is a resurrection of a user who copied and copied and copied.

@marmot I don't know the history but that comment impressed (but not in a postive way, I can't recall the correct English term) me, sincerely…

@CarLaTeX I deleted it now but this one is truly unbelievable ...

@marmot Please show me the next example :) I would like to judge from an external point of view :)

@cis which MWE where?

@cis ah, you meant my recent answer on texwelt.

@cis issue found, posting edit.

@barbarabeeton for chemical names which are more or less structured things it (may) be possible to define a set of \patterns that would cover a lot rather than a hypenation list, but of course (away from luatex) they would need to be in the format so perhaps less convenient.

@DavidCarlisle The chemicals involved were all 'well know' I think ...

@JosephWright sure but even well known ones mostly consist of well known prefixes and well known suffixes and the tricky bit in the middle, so would be amenable to patterns I'd guess?

@marmot I've got to ask - what's a glorious definition? :-)

@DavidCarlisle Yes, sure

@JosephWright I'm starting to document the functions. How do one sensibly describe that \Arg{name} leads to /name (with the slash) in the pdf? /\meta{name}?

@egreg guess why the second patch failed:

\documentclass{scrbook}
\usepackage{xpatch}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd\scr@@startchapter{\@afterheading}{\@afterheading}{}{\faila}

\ExplSyntaxOn
\patchcmd\scr@@startchapter{\@afterheading}{\@afterheading}{}{\failb}
\ExplSyntaxOff
\makeatother
\begin{document}
sss
\end{document}

Are you surprised? I'm not: the macro \scr@@startchapter contains spaces.

@egreg evils of \scantokens :-)

@egreg I looked at first for colons, and then it took me quite some time to realize that there are spaces in the command as I looked only at the line ends, who cares about \typeout? ;-)

@UlrikeFischer Yes, sounds right

@UlrikeFischer Perhaps \texttt{/}\meta{name}?

@JosephWright I now used ` |/|\meta{name}`.

@UlrikeFischer Seems OK too

@UlrikeFischer On my way to work, I was thinking about expl3 releases. I'm wondering whether it's better to get everything sorted and do one big one, or perhaps do one now for l3str-convert/l3backend then later for the other bits.

@JosephWright I think we should sort a bit first, currently I even can't test properly as some commands still needs to be renamed. And we should warn people who perhaps used \driver commands (@AlexG @MarcelKrüger) that they are gone ....

@JosephWright btw I saw that you changed l3hooks and the temporary shipout code now fails. Is there an update somewhere?

@UlrikeFischer Not just yet! I'm trying to get everything sorted, but it's non-trivial

@UlrikeFischer I'm trying to get the hooks stuff more-or-less as agree over the weekend, then will look at the shipout hook (if that's OK)

@JosephWright sure, I can easily fall back to atbegshi or something like this, by changing the "end_run" function (when I get to a state where I can actually compile again ;-)).

@UlrikeFischer I hope to get the hooks done perhaps today or tomorrow

@UlrikeFischer Probably we need to agree on l3pdf too

@UlrikeFischer Driver code currently used only by us and tagpdf, so we should be OK I hope

@JosephWright yes, I guess I will find in the next days a few commands that need to/can be moved there too.

@JosephWright officially, but I guess there are experiments somewhere ...

@UlrikeFischer I will consider myself warned.

@MarcelKrüger Likely plan is to add l3pdf as a low-leverl interface to l3kernel, hopefully over the coming coule of weeks

@UlrikeFischer I think I'll wait until I 'stabilise' l3hooks before making any changes to the shipout stuff. Some of the interfaces are still a bit 'green'

@MarcelKrüger ;-). We decided to hide the \driver commands. It didn't look right that there was e.g. a public \driver function and a \pdf function to add something to the page dictionaries - people where bound to use the wrong one.

@UlrikeFischer On l3hooks I'm still not 100% sure about the namespacing

@MarcelKrüger Hopefully over the next few months we'll get all of this sorted: I'd expect a pretty solid structure to be arranged by the end of the year. Perhaps details by mail ...

@PhelypeOleinik Please check the latest l3msg updates: I hope they address the issues

@JosephWright svglatex sounds good, but how on earth could we name latex+dvipdfmx??

@UlrikeFischer See my comment: who actually uses this for new documents

@JosephWright Oh, looks nice to me :-)

@JosephWright I'd suggest, perhaps, to say in the documentation of \msg_fatal:nn(nnn) that the pdf file isn't produced when this error is issued. (not that this is relevant, after a fatal error .-.)

@PhelypeOleinik Added

@DavidCarlisle, @UlrikeFischer Could you check my changes to github.com/latex3/tex-ini-files before I release?

Quack!

A large protest against our Prime Minister starts in 1 hour! Expected attendance: 100k people (that's 1% of the population)

@PauloCereda Boo! Foo!

@yo' ooh

@yo' hi pal!

@PauloCereda Hi!

@AlanMunn Just to let you know: NSF seems to be OK with pdf/a created by acrobat pro. (Whether or not these publications become really accessible, I do not know, but the stuff is so complicated that it is not accessible anyway. ;-) Let's see if there will be a revival of questions how to do this with LaTeX.

@marmot Good to know. Thanks.

Hello. How is this letter typed in LaTeX?

@JosephWright yes still worry a bit about the names why svglatex (from dvisvg) but dvipdfmxlatex (from dvipdfmx) ?

@ahorn \chi_t ?

@DavidCarlisle Yes, I'm busy reading a textbook where this appears, but I wasn't sure whether it is chi or not. Is it just the font?

@ahorn it would be a rather stylized x if its an x also where is the baseline?, an x sits on it, a chi is below.

@DavidCarlisle this is very likely a math italic x (latin alphabet)

@ahorn what object does it denote?

It is on the baseline. It denotes a price that is set by a firm which is re-evaluating its prices.

@ahorn definitely simply $x_t$

@ahorn yes in context thats an x

@yo' Yes. A funny font.

Squiggly x for sure. :)

Wibblywobbly x.

@ahorn if you say so :)

Thanks.

@ahorn is that from a pdf or off paper copy?

haha, earlier today, I read "glorious definitions" in this chat room and was wondering what it refered to. Just found out now. :D

@DavidCarlisle a PDF. David Romer's Advanced Macroeconomics textbook, 4th ed, page 345

@ahorn so you can get a list of all the fonts, and just cut and paste that letter to see which it is

@UlrikeFischer Mrs. Fischer....

I am not that crazy that you think...

It was not my idea to use \label{<title of chapter>} with mathmode, verb, special characters etc......

@DavidCarlisle well it seems to be a pity to force on svg an ugly name like dvisvglatex only because there is no good short name for "dvipdfmx". Also as dvipslatex is latex there is no consistency anyway ;-) @JosephWright is there an install target for the ini-files? Then I would try to build the formats.

@UlrikeFischer no but people may want to use svglatex for a system that makes svg, eg github.com/smasher164/svglatex so svglatex is "too nice" and "dvipdfmxlatex is "too horrible" ....

@cis special chars are odd but can be handled with \detokenize. Much more problematic is that if you add a chapter, chapter 3 will be chapter 4 and the label changes and the references no longer works.

@UlrikeFischer the title includes the number?

@DavidCarlisle hm yes, so probably it will have to be dvisvglatex.

@DavidCarlisle it is a question on texwelt with "automatic label creation" as \label{ch:\thechapter}. I made there a side remark that such labels are not a good idea.

@JosephWright in the xdvipdfmx-backend files are a few \__pdf_literal:x/n which should be renamed to \__kernel_backend_literal:x/n

@UlrikeFischer what is German for DON'T DO THAT

@DavidCarlisle BLOSS NICHT

@marmot Not "Tun Sie das ja nicht!"?

@AlanMunn Mine is shorter and can be use regardless of whether you know the person "Du mode" or not "Sie mode". ;-)

@marmot :my sources tell me that mean DO NOT BLESS

@marmot I see, so xy vs tikz versions. :)

@AlanMunn my sources agree with you:-)

@DavidCarlisle You should fire your sources.

@marmot you can not fire infallible oracles

@DavidCarlisle Then you need to be creative.

@marmot I can draw aeroplanes, does that count as creative?

@AlanMunn Yes. "Spinnst Du?" also works but some may not like it.

@DavidCarlisle Can these planes be used for travel?

@marmot in absolute safety

@marmot No, but they're carbon neutral.

@DavidCarlisle I see. Well prepared for Brexit, then? ;-)

@marmot I am afraid that even access to an infallible oracle is not enough to be prepared for that.

@DavidCarlisle At least BLOSS NICHT applies to Brexit as well...

@marmot there is even an airline:

@cis tex.stackexchange.com/questions/341948/…

@DavidCarlisle Your oracle also translates "BLOß NICHT" with "DO NOT BLEED". Very creative.

@marmot yes I noticed that:-)

@DavidCarlisle Q: Should I switch to Word? A: Bloß nicht! ... such mistranslations can have severe side-effects.

@marmot it's an unfair test really you confuse the system with over-long words and mis-placed greek letters:-)

@cis but normally you make the default the "usual case" good value, not a really bad value that you never want.

@UlrikeFischer DPC is still available: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_IATA_code:_D

@UlrikeFischer And I know why: Dramatic Plane Crash.

@marmot so is zzz en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_IATA_code:_Z

@DavidCarlisle PFT as well.

@UlrikeFischer

@cis it would be better to use a normalized version of [short] than use the number, labelling with an automatically treated number is such an anti-pattern even the "it won't be used" reason for having it is not really reason enough.

@cis I did understand this, and you are not the first thinking it would be a good idea to autonumber labels, and you will not be the last realizing that this is a bad idea when you insert a new chapter one and all numbers change.

@DavidCarlisle This was just for fun. \chapter{...}\label{...} is ok...

@cis \chapter{...\label{...}} is even better

@DavidCarlisle You could have use your new-learnt German expression here.

@DavidCarlisle OK

@marmot @marmot @DavidCarlisle Some evening I translated "scheißegal" for some students from the U.S. with "fucking equal" ... they have been laughing the whole evening about my -brilliant- translation....

@cis Translation: I don't care.

@marmot I do not think, this is that 'hard'... ;)

@cis It's what Rhett said to Scarlett.

@AlanMunn I don't think that was in German.

@FaheemMitha The Germans love their dubbed films. :)

@marmot I was suggested a less polite translation

@AlanMunn They do?

@FaheemMitha At least when I spent time in Germany in the late 90s most mainstream American films were shown in dubbed versions. Only art-house films used subtitles. I don't know if that has changed more recently.

@AlanMunn Oh. Maybe they should try to find some cinema worth watching.

@FaheemMitha That's painting American cinema with a pretty broad brush. Would you prefer Bollywood? :)

@AlanMunn Well, I'm thinking about the stuff that gets exported.

@AlanMunn Definitely not.

@cis yes it is, but I'd appreciate it if you moderated the language in chat, this page gets seen at home and at work, and I wouldn't use such terms in either place

@DavidCarlisle Although this is a case of 'mention' rather than 'use' of language. Of course the topic itself (discussing such phrases) might be avoided.

@AlanMunn sure but people walking past your desk don't read the entire thread to see the context. And I do work in an open plan office, and an open house...

@DavidCarlisle No problem. I think adult people can also talk without putting a hand over their mouths. ;)

@cis does German have the phrase "not in front of the children" ?

@DavidCarlisle Yes, "Nicht vor den Kindern!"

@cis I thought it might:-)

@cis I feel you should consider the possibility that @DavidCarlisle has a point and try to avoid strong language. I am sure there are sites that are made for strong language but this one is not.

120000 people on one of our main squares to protest against the PM influencing the justice system while being investigated for both local and EU frauds.

@yo' Very good. ;)

@yo' That's about 1% of the population?

@DavidCarlisle -- i agree that patterns would be appropriate for chemical names. Exactly how to incorporate those with the "ordinary" patterns is what I don't know. On the other hand, a set of "chemical name" patterns might be applicable to more than one language, not just English. To be investigated. Maybe I'll ask Arthur Reutenauer.

@egreg @CarLaTeX Is it ok to say "Il castori costruiscono dighe." to mean "Beavers build dams"? Or do you also need an article on 'dighe'?

What is the proper way to do a "header in the margins" for a book? (i.e. rotated 90 dg text in margins but treated like a 'header' or 'footer')

@barbarabeeton i was thinking just set up a new language for chemistry and so \chemicalname{polymetawhateverbiethonolaclorideaminything} would just switch to a new set of patterns

@LordStryker put them in the header but rotated into the margin (using picture mode or tikz or whatever you like)

@DavidCarlisle Can fancyhdr be used to do this?

@LordStryker yes

@AlanMunn No article if used in “generic sense”.

@DavidCarlisle -- That might work, although switching back and forth with the "natural language" of a text might be a pain. But needn't be done unless problems actually show up.

@egreg Ok thanks. The article is required on the subject though, right?

@AlanMunn Yes.

@AlanMunn But “I castori costruiscono le loro dighe nelle anse dei fiumi”

Ah, found some examples: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/54808/…

TeX community is best community. Thanks @DavidCarlisle!

@egreg Of course. Thanks.

@AlanMunn The article is compulsory with possessives, with a few exceptions when relations are involved: mio fratello, mio padre, mia zia; but it's not uncommon to hear “la mia mamma” and “il mio babbo”.

@AlanMunn Actually “il mio babbo” cannot go without the article, but “mio papà” is more commonly without (at least in some regions).

@AlanMunn I guess you know that “babbo” and “papà” both mean dad.

@egreg Yes I figured that. :)

@AlanMunn A colleague and friend of mine, who's from Venice, married a Florentine; she tried, unsuccessfully, to teach their children to say “babbo”. In our context it's very rarely heard.

I see we've wandered from German to Italian.

Heading East, apparently.

@marmot yep. And it's a 4th protest in a row, each one get larger than the previous one. Next week there are protests in all the cities and towns and villages but in Prague, in 2 weeks there's an even large place in Prague booked for the protests.

@yo' Yes, this is good and bad at the same time. Good because 1% of the population protesting is a huge number in a modern democracy, and bad because fanatic extremists can conceivably gather almost comparable numbers, not because they have similar support in the population but their followers are more fanatic, so they have a larger turnout.

I need an American: What is the correct way to format 3.5" floppy drive? Straight quotes or curly quotes?

@marmot this was the case with protests months ago. Now this thing is really powerful. Trust me, nobody here can get 100000 people to gather for nothing. And also, saying that these people are angry is understatement. I usually use a different word, but there was some discussion about NSFW, so I'm not gonna use that one.

@yo' I am not doubting this. It is just sad that these things keep happening, i.e. we tend to elect people who are morally not qualified to do what they are supposed to do.

I'm quite sure that if Babis (the PM) allows this to escalate even more, people will go on strike: block transport, block the governmental buildings, stop delivering important services. So far, the group that organizes most of the protests here manages to calm any aggressive people down, so far there was no violence whatsoever. But this can easily change.

@marmot well, Babis is a great manipulator (even in the Nazi style), and also he is hard-working (just not the right way), and also the politicians before him did not care so blatantly that easily people vote for false saviours such as him.

@yo' Still. All these people have family. No one tells them that this inappropriate?

Some of the speeches today were very inspirational. A big and important point is that democracy is not done only in elections. Democracy is an active and never-ending process that needs good people to get involved: in politics, in activities, in teaching people around.

@marmot there have been family breakups over the current political situation.

@marmot Also I know whole families who are pro-Babis. I know people in scouts who are not able to see that he's a 100% liar. At the same time, I know an adult guy who really doesn't know what's the truth, and for instance I have never heard him admit that he had made a mistake. As as we've spent weeks of time together in the summer camps, he's surely made dozens of mistakes, maybe small ones, but still.

@yo' This is also not without problems. If you turn this around you might say that in a democratic system active people should have more say, which gets amplified if they are in certain positions.

@yo' Very often this is just the fact that it is not easy to admit you voted for the wrong person. So they do know that this person is a liar, but find all sorts of excuses to say that their judgment at election day was not wrong.

@marmot well, in democracy there should always be enough room for a dialogue so that all groups of people have a say, even groups that are not able to stand their position themselves (like homeless) should have advocates.

@marmot yeah, that's why I tell them, when I can: "You know, I don't care that much what you tell to me, I just hope you yourself realize what's good or wrong."

But actually, that's a point I was missing today in the speeches. That people should learn to admit mistakes, and teach admitting mistakes to others this way.

@yo' Yes, but in practice this is tough. There are simply some who can reach and influence more people than others, which is why facebook and so on got so important. Ideally this should not be possible, but this is how human mind seems to work. (Of course, as a marmot I cannot know this. ;-)

@marmot sure. But the more open you are with your politics (especially on the local level) the better, obviously. Also, the more active people there are, the better.

@yo' This is all true. But this all requires that the information, on which we base our opinions, is accurate and didn't get manipulated. Which is a nontrivial requirement, especially in the era of facebook and company.

@marmot and with world-wide declining trust in media in general

anyway, as a bottom line, a saying by Vaclav Havel: "Hope is not the belief that something is going to turn out well. Hope is the belief that something makes sense regardless of the outcome."

and now I should go get some sleep.

@yo' I do not actually know whom I can trust. Especially in a country in which almost all news companies belong to someone who has a political agenda.... good night!

@Canageek Will another (but older) Canadian do? Straight quotes.

@Canageek -- Straight quotes. (@AlanMunn can be trusted on this.) Think of iot this way -- those aren't quotes! That really indicates "inches", and if a double prime were available, that would be even better.

@barbarabeeton :)

@Canageek @barbarabeeton Although the correct way to format a 3.5" floppy drive is to use an old computer. :)

@AlanMunn -- snarf.

@AlanMunn These had 5 1/4 " if I remember correctly.

@marmot -- or even 8" if old enough.

@marmot Clearly your threshold for 'old' is driven by your attachment to your iPhone 3. :)

@marmot well, that depends what is "old". In the time when @egreg was young, the floppy disk looked like this:

I have all three types in my basement. Although I have no way to read the 8" or 5 1/4" ones.

@barbarabeeton They should have kept the punch cards, then we wouldn't have this discussion.

@yo' Is 40 years of age young? ;-)

@marmot who knows :)

I don't have any punch cards in my basement although I have used them. But I do have a punch card box.

@AlanMunn And you are complaining about me keeping my iPhone 3? This still works, and has the "answer TikZ question" button which the newer models no longer have.

@marmot Having started with the iPhone 5 I've never had the pleasure of that button. :)

@AlanMunn Too bad. What does yours have? Forest?

@marmot No, you manage to scoop me on all forest answers these days. :)

@AlanMunn There is this app but I do not think it works with the newer iPhones ;-)

@AlanMunn here you can find my cell phone.

@marmot We should call you quick \draw McGraw.

tex.stackexchange.com/tags/draw/topusers

@AlanMunn ^^^ this is why this app is great.

well, you can ask Magnus Carlsen to \draw you something :-)

@marmot tex.stackexchange.com/tags/linguistics/topusers :)

@yo' He does not always respond to my emails.

@marmot Because he's 10 emails ahead.

@AlanMunn lol

@AlanMunn No, because he is playing by the rules.

@AlanMunn My ranking is better because there @DavidCarlisle is ahead of @egreg. ;-)

@yo' Really! I had to make a program in Fortran for a numerical analysis minicourse, on punch cards!