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<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:c.a.rowley@open.ac.uk">c.a.rowley@open.ac.uk</a> a écrit :
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<pre wrap="">no, not a bug, but a knuth design
decision.
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<pre wrap=""><!---->And hence, as ever, somewhat unintuitive
(unless you want to look as deeply as Knuth
and Robin into the use of text as a sequence
of commands and the power of the empty line!).</pre>
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<br>
If I may add my own point of view, what we're talking about here is
neither a bug nor unintuitive. It just reminds us that TeX is not
simply a programming language (if it is one at all) but a typographic
device, which implies some assumptions. Baseline distances are
meaningless unless they're related to paragraph building: a single line
has no baseline distance. So it is normal that \normalsize influence
the whole paragraph, it wouldn't make sense otherwise.<br>
<br>
Now, Tom, that something at the END influences the BEGINNING of
anything is the basic philosophy of TeX, and once again it has to do
with typography. A typeset text is not a sequence of events, where what
has happened before can't be modified afterward; a typeset text is more
like a picture in which the balance of things depends on slight
details. Thus, although we type paragraphs token after token, TeX tries
to get the big picture, and that's why we're using it! This might be
"very confusing for users", but then TeX users should be aware that
they're doing typography here, and that programming in TeX is meant to
serve that goal.<br>
<br>
Paul <br>
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