[pracjourn-forum] For our error collection

[Christina Thiele]

Adam Lindsay writes:
> 
> Steve Peter said this at Thu, 8 Sep 2005 15:35:56 -0400:
> 
> >On Sep 8, 2005, at 3:01 PM, Peter Flom wrote:
> >
> >> If you type, e.g.
> >> \LaTeX\:
> >>
> >> (neglecting to put a space after the second \)
> >
> >Unless you're writing French, you don't want a space anyway.  
> >(Although $\:$ will in fact give you some space.)
> 
> It's also indicative of another newbie mistake with acronym/logo-style
> macros, over-generalizing from example documents. 'LaTeX' is find-and-
> replaced with \LaTeX\, and spacing next to punctuation becomes a bit
> strange. "LaTeX<space>" should be replaced with '\LaTeX' and '\<space>'.
> (The old segmentation-and-misgeneralization-from-impoverished-input
> learning problem, eh?)
> 
> I say "newbie" because I remember learning my way out of it not too long
> ago...
> -- 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>  Adam T. Lindsay, Computing Dept.     atl at comp.lancs.ac.uk
>  Lancaster University, InfoLab21        +44(0)1524/510.514
>  Lancaster, LA1 4WA, UK             Fax:+44(0)1524/510.492
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> 
> --
> http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/pracjourn-forum
> 


Isn't the more general analysis that global S-and-R of

   \LaTeX

with

   \LaTeX\

has to take into account that the character immediately after the
final X _is_ significant. If it's a space, then

   \LaTeX --> \LaTeX\

will be ok. 

But if there's a non-space character, then the final ...X\ will
actually be understood as X\macro. 

In Peter's example, changing the logo macro this way:

   \LaTeX: --> \LaTeX\:

now has _two_ macros: the logo \LaTeX and \:

Same with the other Peter's 

   \LaTeX, --> \LaTeX\,

_The LaTeX Companion_ and the _TeXbook_ list all backslash +
punctuation combinations at the start of their indices; the Lamport
(2nd ed) does so as well, but kindly provided explanations of just
what your \: or \, mean to TeX ;-)  Medium and thin spaces,
respectively. 

None, however, use the index to say that these are achieved by going
into math mode, which would be a good reason for that gripe about the
missing $-sign. 

===

I suppose the above is almost there as far as an explanation for the
errors file ;-) 

But I needed to exercise my brain here, as well as my reference
collection ... which is still missing the other humungoidal book, the
latest Kopka/Daly, which was out of stock with Chapters a few months
ago, when I went on a buying spree ;-(

Oh well ... should try again, now that the fall term has begun. 

Oh, I think the above should probably include an aside explaining the
differences and consequences of choosing between \LaTeX\ and \LaTeX{}
for this ...

Ch.