[tex4ht] TeX4ht upgrading: doesn't work

[Karl Berry]

Michal - No question documentation is lacking, but I don't think a wiki
would help anything, but would rather confuse matters further.  If
someone would like to edit together CVR's articles (cvr.cc) into a LaTeX
document, that is going to be my first step whenever I have a chance to
get back into tex4ht development.  Your other points are well taken but
I have nothing to respond with.

Paul -

    paul> What is the functional specification for tex4ht? 

There is none that I've ever seen.  Eitan created a practical system and
hacked it as needed.

    Can it survive in its current form?

As long as someone is willing to spend the time tracking down all of
Eitan's idiosyncracies, which is to say, as long as tex4ht is important
enough to enough people, presumably someone will be willing.

Currently CVR is probably the only person on the planet who can
(relatively) easily hack his code, but it's not out of reach for anyone.
It's all there.  It just takes (a lot of) time to get into it.

    Will LaTeX survive? 

It's already survived for decades, with a spread far surpassing any
comparable system.  I can't imagine it going away in the foreseeable
future.
    
    LaTeX3 is going to possibly fix this, 

LaTeX3 is not going to be any more "formal" in your sense than LaTeX2e
is.  Also, LaTeX3 has basically nothing in common with LaTeX2e except
the people who are developing it, and few if any nontrivial LaTeX2e
documents will work under LaTeX3.  (And therefore it should not, IMHO,
be named "LaTeX" anything.  I've expressed this opinion to Frank. :)

Best,
Karl