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 Definitions for TeX: Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)
:
TeX /tekh/ n. An extremely powerful macro-based text formatter
written by Donald E. Knuth, very popular in the computer-science
community (it is good enough to have displaced Unix {troff}, the other
favored formatter, even at many Unix installations). TeX fans insist on
the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all
caps, squished together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the
mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only
devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX' -- such as
TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster (competent
TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique. See also CrApTeX.
Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining quality
of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental "Art of Computer
Programming" (see Knuth, also bible). In a manifestation of the
typical hackish urge to solve the problem at hand once and for all, he
began to design his own typesetting language. He thought he would finish
it on his sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years. The
language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The Art of
Computer Programming" is not expected to appear until 2002. The impact
and influence of TeX's design has been such that nobody minds this very
much. Many grand hackish projects have started as a bit of
toolsmithing on the way to something else; Knuth's diversion was
simply on a grander scale than most.
TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
high-quality software. Knuth offers a monetary awards to anyone who
found and reported bugs dating from before the 1989 code freeze; as the
years wore on and the few remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones even
harder to find), the bribe went up. Though well-written, TeX is so large
(and so full of cutting edge technique) that it is said to have
unearthed at least one bug in every Pascal system it has been compiled
with.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
:
TeX
/tekh/ An extremely powerful macro-based text
formatter written by Donald Knuth, very popular in academia,
especially in the computer-science community (it is good
enough to have displaced Unix troff, the other favoured
formatter, even at many Unix installations).
The first version of TeX was written in the programming
language SAIL, to run on a {PDP-10} under Stanford's WAITS
operating system.
Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining
quality of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental
"Art of Computer Programming" (see Knuth, also bible). In
a manifestation of the typical hackish urge to solve the
problem at hand once and for all, he began to design his own
typesetting language. He thought he would finish it on his
sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years. The
language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The
Art of Computer Programming" has yet to appear as of mid-1997.
(However, the third edition of volumes I and II have come
out). The impact and influence of TeX's design has been such
that nobody minds this very much. Many grand hackish projects
have started as a bit of toolsmithing on the way to
something else; Knuth's diversion was simply on a grander
scale than most.
Guy Steele happened to be at Stanford during the summer of
1978, when Knuth was developing his first version of TeX.
When he returned to MIT that fall, he rewrote TeX's {I/O} to
run under ITS.
TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
high-quality software. Knuth offers monetary awards to people
who find and report a bug in it: for each bug the award is
doubled. (This has not made Knuth poor, however, as there
have been very few bugs and in any case a cheque proving that
the owner found a bug in TeX is rarely cashed). Though
well-written, TeX is so large (and so full of cutting edge
technique) that it is said to have unearthed at least one bug
in every Pascal system it has been compiled with.
TeX fans insist on the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and
the correct spelling (all caps, squished together, with the E
depressed below the baseline; the mixed-case "TeX" is
considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only devices).
Fans like to proliferate names from the word "TeX" - such as
TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster
(competent TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique.
Several document processing systems are based on TeX, notably
LaTeX Lamport TeX - incorporates document styles for books,
letters, slides, etc., jadeTeX uses TeX as a backend for
printing from {James' DSSSL Engine}, and Texinfo, the GNU
document processing system. Numerous extensions to TeX exist,
among them BibTeX for bibliographies (distributed with
LaTeX), PDFTeX modifies TeX to produce PDF and Omega
extends TeX to use the Unicode character set.
For some reason, TeX uses its own variant of the point, the
TeX point.
See also Comprehensive TeX Archive Network.
{(ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/tex/)}.
E-mail: (TeX User's group, Oregon, USA).
(2002-03-11)
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