From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: enriched-mode and switching major modes. Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:44:54 +0000 (UTC) Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <200409042358.i84Nwjt19152@raven.dms.auburn.edu> <87llfn5ihw.fsf@emacswiki.org> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1095716733 26841 80.91.229.6 (20 Sep 2004 21:45:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:45:33 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 20 23:45:15 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1C9VyE-0005QJ-00 for ; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:45:14 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1C9W47-0001yk-M7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:51:19 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1C9W40-0001ye-Uj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:51:13 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1C9W3z-0001yS-DA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:51:12 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1C9W3z-0001yP-9d for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:51:11 -0400 Original-Received: from [69.168.110.189] (helo=rattlesnake.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1C9Vy1-0000ud-C2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:45:01 -0400 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.115) Mon, 20 Sep 2004 21:44:54 +0000 (UTC) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Oliver Scholz on Mon, 20 Sep 2004 16:17:19 +0200) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:27350 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:27350 Oliver Scholz wrote, The benefit is that you do this while looking at the "surface expression". Please be more precise and say `one of the surface expressions'. Otherwise, someone may think that a particular surface expression is prime. This happens not only when people work on LaTeX to produce papers that are to be printed, but with many word processing programs. Unfortunately, even Emacs people think this way sometimes. Yes, it is less of a problem since people who use Emacs tend to read Texinfo documents and know they may be printed or in Info or in HTML (or they listen to them). But even so, I have run into people editing a Texinfo source file who think it is primarily for `the book', i.e., for printed form typeset with TeX, or for `Info'. I have done this myself. I fear this tendency towards over simplification is universal. It needs to be fought. Stefan made the good point that ... the deep representation . .. is the format where I can expresss my *intents*, i.e. where I can distinguish between two concepts even if they happen to be rendered identically on the currently used output mode This is worth remembering. One surface representation provides you with only one way to specify your intent. Pretty obviously, this may not be the only intent you want to save. Nonetheless, this intent must be incorporated into the deep representation along with the others. (This is all very hard to do; and some surface representations, such as Info, simply cannot provide all the data used by a representation such as that produced by TeX.) -- Robert J. Chassell bob@rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc