[W/K] :: TeX

  TeX /tekh/ n. An extremely powerful macro-based text formatter
     written by Donald E. Knuth, very popular in the computer-science
     community (it is good enough to have displaced Unix {troff, the other
     favored formatter, even at many Unix installations). TeX fans insist on
     the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all
     caps, squished together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the
     mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only
     devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX' -- such as
     TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster (competent
     TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique. See also CrApTeX.
  
     Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining quality
     of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental "Art of Computer
     Programming" (see Knuth, also bible). In a manifestation of the
     typical hackish urge to solve the problem at hand once and for all, he
     began to design his own typesetting language. He thought he would finish
     it on his sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years. The
     language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The Art of
     Computer Programming" is not expected to appear until 2002. The impact
     and influence of TeX's design has been such that nobody minds this very
     much. Many grand hackish projects have started as a bit of
     toolsmithing on the way to something else; Knuth's diversion was
     simply on a grander scale than most.
  
     TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
     high-quality software. Knuth offers a monetary awards to anyone who
     found and reported bugs dating from before the 1989 code freeze; as the
     years wore on and the few remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones even
     harder to find), the bribe went up. Though well-written, TeX is so large
     (and so full of cutting edge technique) that it is said to have
     unearthed at least one bug in every Pascal system it has been compiled
     with.
  
  

  TeX
       
           /tekh/ An extremely powerful macro-based text
          formatter written by Donald Knuth, very popular in academia,
          especially in the computer-science community (it is good
          enough to have displaced Unix troff, the other favoured
          formatter, even at many Unix installations).
       
          The first version of TeX was written in the programming
          language SAIL, to run on a PDP-10 under Stanford's WAITS
          operating system.
       
          Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining
          quality of the typesetting in volumes I-III of his monumental
          "Art of Computer Programming" (see Knuth, also bible).  In
          a manifestation of the typical hackish urge to solve the
          problem at hand once and for all, he began to design his own
          typesetting language.  He thought he would finish it on his
          sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years.  The
          language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The
          Art of Computer Programming" has yet to appear as of mid-1997.
          (However, the third edition of volumes I and II have come
          out).  The impact and influence of TeX's design has been such
          that nobody minds this very much.  Many grand hackish projects
          have started as a bit of toolsmithing on the way to
          something else; Knuth's diversion was simply on a grander
          scale than most.
       
          Guy Steele happened to be at Stanford during the summer of
          1978, when Knuth was developing his first version of TeX.
          When he returned to MIT that fall, he rewrote TeX's I/O to
          run under ITS.
       
          TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
          high-quality software.  Knuth offers monetary awards to people
          who find and report a bug in it: for each bug the award is
          doubled.  (This has not made Knuth poor, however, as there
          have been very few bugs and in any case a cheque proving that
          the owner found a bug in TeX is rarely cashed).  Though
          well-written, TeX is so large (and so full of cutting edge
          technique) that it is said to have unearthed at least one bug
          in every Pascal system it has been compiled with.
       
          TeX fans insist on the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and
          the correct spelling (all caps, squished together, with the E
          depressed below the baseline; the mixed-case "TeX" is
          considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only devices).
          Fans like to proliferate names from the word "TeX" - such as
          TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster
          (competent TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique.
       
          Several document processing systems are based on TeX, notably
          LaTeX Lamport TeX - incorporates document styles for books,
          letters, slides, etc., jadeTeX uses TeX as a backend for
          printing from James' DSSSL Engine, and Texinfo, the GNU
          document processing system.  Numerous extensions to TeX exist,
          among them BibTeX for bibliographies (distributed with
          LaTeX), PDFTeX modifies TeX to produce PDF and Omega
          extends TeX to use the Unicode character set.
       
          For some reason, TeX uses its own variant of the point, the
          TeX point.
       
          See also Comprehensive TeX Archive Network.
       
          ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/tex/).html">(ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/tex/).
       
          E-mail:  (TeX User's group, Oregon, USA).
       
          (2002-03-11)