>From: toni at athe.WUstl.EDU (Toni Kazic)
>Message-Id: <9309221913.AA14649 at athe.WUstl.EDU>
>To: btk-mca at net.bio.net>In-Reply-To: SCHLOSSER at ciit.org's message of Wed, 22 Sep 1993 14:25 EDT <9309221825.AA15432 at net.bio.net>
>Subject: math notation of FAQs (Is it "an" FAQ or "a" FAQ? <- Is this a FAQ?)
>>>Seems to me a "standard intermediate format" might be more trouble to define
>and translate than it's worth, and that it's easier to adopt a more common
>standard than an emerging one.
(snip)
I guess there are two questions here: easier for whom? and what is the
expected use of the FAQ?
I would expect to read the FAQ on my computer screen, and, on the rare
occaision, want a hardcopy. Since the FAQs are presumably only updated
on occaision, taking a little more touble in setting them up so that
those of us who are happy with our non-Latex word processors don't have
to get and learn Latex just to read them would hardly seem excessive. I
thought that the notation I used was quite self-explanatory, and hence
requires no explanation or trouble to define. (Did anyone have trouble
reading it?) THEN the Latex version can be tacked at the
end for those who want to get nice hard-copies. Similarly, if you are
posting an abstract as an "advertisement", I see it as incumbant on the
person who is posting to make the abstract readable, rather than making
the reader work to translate it. I already have versions of the various
equations in word-processor files, so I can cut, paste, and modify much
more easily than it would be for me to translate it into Tex & then to
Word.
I know that there's lots of pressure for everyone to conform and use the
same wordprocessor (Tex), but I'm a non-conformist ;-)
Paul
schlosser at beta.ciit.org
