[luatex] Hash tokens meaning

[Arthur Reutenauer]

> Under your comparison, C is LaTeX, and an object file is TeX (I don't
> care about the dvi right now).

  That doesn't make any sense.  TeX is a program, you can't compare it
to a file format.  A comparison that would make more sense is that C is
TeX, the object file is TeX's hash table (that is usually not dumped on
file), and up to now you've not really used TeX itself, but a macro
package, LaTeX, that provides a convenient user interface to it.

> However, I find the translation from C to object much easier: the
> number of segments in an object files roughly compares to the number
> of functions contained in the original source code. It seems that
> LaTeX commands are much more complex than I've thought.

  That's because they're macros, and -- presumably -- you've only used
the high-level user interface up to now.  Hence you seem disturbed by
the fact that LaTeX defines many more commands that you've used until
now; but you shouldn't.  If you look at LaTeX's source code it should be
much clearer.

	Arthur