[texhax] learning tex vs latex

[Philip TAYLOR]

bill lam wrote:

> As I understand, typography is craftsmanship to be acquired by years'
> apprenticeship.  Are various typesetting rules for typography already
> meant to be in-built inside Tex (binary) or Plain Tex format?  Or it
> is only the Latex format provides such help.

Nothing at all in the TeX binary that I can think of, Bill
(perhaps someone will correct me), and the Plain format
really addresses only the most basic aspects, such
as setting \baselineskip to 1.2 x <design size of base
font>.  LaTeX goes a lot lot further in trying to
embed basic AI knowledge of typography, but not everyone
agrees that its basic styles demonstrate this very
successfully ...

Philip Taylor