> My own opinion is that ... it is wrong-headed to intentionally
> design a language with a goal of forcing people to do something in a way
> that they may not want to do it. The language should not designed to be
> pedagogy, it should be designed to be an effective tool for writing
> documents. It should also be teachable, but an unrestricted STYLE
> attribute is in no way less teachable; it is just one more feature that
> a teacher may choose to present or ignore.
Yes, designing a language that people don't like will make them want to
develop their own variants, so the original language will not survive
unless people like the way it works. However, even if you use a style
only once, is it really much harder to give it a short descriptive name
that is defined in the header than it is to define it where it is used?
Many authors may find that they are more productive, or that the quality
of their work improves, if they first organize the text conceptually and
then define the necessary styles in the header, instead of trying to
organize text and define styles at the same time.
David
Work: seibert@hep.physics.mcgill.ca Home: 6420 36th Ave.
Physics Department, McGill University Montreal, PQ, H1T 2Z5
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