- 1
- We are odd folks upon an odyssey
Searching out the future use of text,
Well-braced with practice in all kinds of TEX
To put our notions in a pleasing form.
Even if we use old LATEX's poor design
We will still set our words in perfect type.
- 7
- And if our document is of some other type--
Not words on pages, but something else to see
And yet still math: greek letters or a sine?
Will Hans Hagen put us in ConTEXt?
Or Richter make us fill insurance forms?
Well--there's nothing we can't do with TEX.
- 13
- When we are old and gray and full of TEX
And can write macros of nearly any type
To create such things as, say, pdf forms--
Or JavaScript or other TEXpert fantasy--
How many ways can we then write a text
Or put the signified into a sign?
- 19
- Hail Sir Tranh! His pdfTEX's new design
Has Czeched out to be the very best TEX-
Nical trick in years--but ask not for a text
From which to learn its use. He doesn't do that type
Of work. Martin will impose himself; you'll see
That nothing else will do to make a form.
- 25
- Perhaps there is a need for some reform:
Some new ML developed to consign
Our TEX to the bottom of the data sea.
No! It shall not be. Our faith in LATEX
Three is strong--for all that it be of the type
That needs no evidence nor any sacred text.
- 31
- Let hoi polloi use (ech!) Word for their text.
We know they are debased, their work deformed
(Need I make more comments of this type?)
A small thread in the world's web, we design
To rule the whole--at least the best. And TEX
Is alpha and Omega of our odyssey.
- 37
- You who make text fit for the best design
And wish the world conformable to TEX--
You are our type. Come join our odyssey!
