Hi Tadziu, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote on Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 11:22:44PM +0200: > Peter Schaffter wrote:
>> A macro package does not hide the controls any more than writing >> macros yourself does. A macro package aggregates the requests >> needed to perform typesetting functions for convenience, not >> opacity. > Well said. I would like to add that I sometimes get the > impression that people think that once they use a macro > package, raw formatter requests should not be used anymore, > as they somehow taint the "purity" of the manuscript. > (This idea also appears to exist among some LaTeX users.) > > But this is of course nonsense. Indeed. That only applies to some special areas like manual pages, where you want consistency across a wide range of authors, document maintainers (many of whom are inexperienced with typesetting), operating systems, and formatting tools. > The purpose of macro packages > is not to *limit* what you are *allowed* to do, but to *help* > you in what you *want* to do. And we should keep in mind > that one of the core uses of macros is not to save a few > keystrokes in marking up the manuscript (although it helps), > but to maintain *consistency* across the entire document. Right. When you write a book, consistency with a book written by someone else on the other side of the globe is of relatively little concern. As opposed to the case of manual pages. Yours, Ingo
