Re: [Axiom-developer] LaTeX preamble

[Ralf Hemmecke]

Martin Rubey wrote:
> Dear Ralf, *
>
> I think that it is not a good idea to fix the set of packages allowed. Just an
> example: suppose I wanted to write a package dealing with young tableaux -
> quite probable, in fact. Then almost certainly I'll use the youngtab
> package. But would you have thought of this now already?

Alright. Clifford mentioned some chemistry packages etc. There are a lot 
of packages around that we simply cannot all put into a common header.

My suggestion would be the following. Split Axiom into Algebra and the 
underlying stuff. For the underlying things I have the impression, we 
could agree on a common preample. And, in fact, it would be a good idea 
to do so, since it is a lot of code to be maintained.

As for Algebra... that is where most (if not all) of the mathematics is.
There are again two parts.
1) The current code.
2) Future code that comes from contributions of other people around the 
world.

Fixing a preample for 1) could be done. But my vision is somewhat 
different. The Algebra documentation should be something like a 
"collection" of articles, that are hyperlinked together but retain a 
certain layered structure. So the articles build up some kind of hierarchy.

I also don't think we can achieve ONE common agreement on the hierarchy 
of domains and categories. We could be close to mathematics, but it 
would not be one-to-one. The language simply imposes some restrictions.

Take for example Ring. That is a Semigroup with respect to 
multiplication and a Group with respect to addition. Wrong! It's an 
AbelianGroup with respect to addition and in Axiom an AbelianGroup is 
not a Group. :-( There is simply no language feature to rename 
operations. Well, that is a other topic...

You should see ALLPROSE in this like light. Several articles(=libraries) 
that build on top of each other and extend Axiom step by step and may at 
some point in time be integrated into Axiom.

Since that is going to be bigger and bigger, I thought already about a 
way to combine two (or more) ALLPROSE projects. Unfortunately, I have 
not succeeded yet, but there is a package "combine" which could probably 
help me here. But I have still a little design problem. I want 
references from one article which refers to a domain in some other 
article (library) to become hyperlinks if both articles are combined. If 
there were no additional value, we could simply leave the articles 
separate and just document how they relate in another article. (The 
latter should be done anyway.)

> So I'd propose to allow that a list of packages and options can be passed to ALLPROSE. 

ALLPROSE allows you to add any package you like. Just write a file 
PROJECTNAME.sty.nw and put the things there. It will all come into the 
preample.

> Of course this raises yet another problem: some packages are not compatible
> with each other. So maybe we should leave it to the authors that contribute to
> the Axiom source that the latex compiles proberly, and simply leave allprose as
> it is -- and if a new package is needed, he needs to add it to the list of
> packages ALLPROSE includes...

As Tim said, the packages that are used by some article should be 
distributed with the article. The problem is that one has to read the 
licenses of those packages in order to know what one is allowed to do.

I think an important thing is to state in the article what version of 
the LaTeX package has been used by the author. Some packages are not 
compatible with earlier versions. I would at most require packages to be 
included, if they cannot be found on CTAN (http://www.ctan.org/).

Any, the rationale is:
A) fix the preample for every book-volume and the corresponding files
   except ALGEBRA.
B) allow any style for Algebra contributions (but still no
   \documentclass{..} ... \begin{document} ... \end{document}
   wrapper---separate style from contents).


Ralf