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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Zdeněk Wagner made three different
points :
<ol>
<li>
<pre wrap="">That a universal special would be equivalent to developing a new language</pre>
</li>
<li>
<pre wrap="">That different drivers require different specials to be inserted at different points in the source code</pre>
</li>
<li>
<pre wrap="">That a special that cannot be handled by a particular driver should result in a warning.</pre>
</li>
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<p>I will address each in turn.<br>
</p>
<ol>
<li>I do not agree. The underlying languages remain unchanged —
all I am proposing is that the \specials become polyglot, and
add a tag identifying the language in which each component is
expressed.</li>
<li>Is easily addressed by including <i>all</i> necessary
specials in the source document at the appropriate places; a
driver would then interpret only those elements of each
\special that are targetted at that particular driver.</li>
<li>Is the crux of the matter, but directly conflicts with
David's point about regression testing. Therefore we need to
add one further \special, at the very beginning of the
document, to indicate whether or not subsequent \specials
should lead to warnings if not understood by any particular
driver.</li>
</ol>
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But perhaps the last is all that actually need to be implemented — a
universal \special, understood by all drivers, that indicates
whether or not a warning should be issued when an unrecognised
\special is encountered ... Turn on for regression testing, off for
production.<br>
<br>
** Phil.<br>
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