[tex-k] inconsistent use of "eye", "mouth", "gullet" in The TeXbook
Karl Berry
karl at freefriends.org
Wed Apr 14 00:25:19 CEST 2021
Subject: [tex-k] inconsistent use of "eye", "mouth", "gullet" ...
Ok, thanks. I am not surprised about the inconsistencies, since the
metaphor is hardly rigorous and the different operations are heavily
intermixed anyway.
Which view should I take if I were to write another article for TUGboat?
It's your choice.
In my mind, I have always thought of "eyes" as tokenization of the
input, "mouth" as expansion of macros, and "stomach" as execution of
primitives. No "gullet". Too ugly a word I guess :).
But tex.web and mf.web take the former view in the explanation of
get_next.
The word "gullet" does not appear in {tex,mf}.web.
(I want to explain that unlike TeX, METAFONT has two kinds of macros,
one handled in the mouth/gullet and one handled in the stomach.)
What are you referring to? --thanks, karl.
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