[texhax] Ref. Man. Bausum [was tabbing]

[Oleg Katsitadze]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 12:19:39PM +0200, Uwe Lück wrote:
> 1. The TeXbook's description of \accent makes me guess
> an aligning macro for which \accent is a hard-wired shorthand
> -- but I can't decide from the TeXbook whether my guess is correct.

I don't think I understand -- do you mean that \accent might
have been a primitive alias for a macro?  Kind of defeats
the meaning of a "primitive" for me.  And why would anybody
want to program a primitive command this way?

> 2. Once I wondered what happens with an \insert box
> when the output routine doesn't print it -- my guess that it is
> emptied was wrong, David Kastrup told me better
> -- but I couldn't read this from the TeXbook.

Indeed, The TeXbook doesn't seem to clearly state this.
However, on p.123, Step 1 of the algorithm says:

  "If there is no previous \insert n on the current page,
   decrease g by hf+w, where h is the current height plus
   depth of \box n"

Why would \box n be not empty if there are no previous
\insert n on the current page?  One can guess, because \box n
was not emptied by the output routine for the previous
page.  Of course, this only remains a guess.  BTW, is my
guess right or wrong? :)  That is, that TeX doesn't empty
\box n and only adds more \insert's later, if possible.

>    The TeX Reference Manual is the first comprehensive
>    reference manual written by a programmer for programmers.

Sorry, I haven't read it.

Best,
Oleg