[texhax] Finding the widest string

[Uwe Lueck]

Stephen Hicks  wrote at 04.05.2010 23:57:09:
>I don't know how widely-followed this is, but it seems to me very bad
>practice to \global-ly set \count@, \dimen@, \skip@, \box\z@, and so
>on.
Chapter 27 of the TeXbook recommends only to do global assignments 
with macros or registers or internal parameters that /always/ get global 
assignments. E.g., \@gtempa is used as a macro for /global/ temporary 
assignments, while \@tempa etc. should be changed /locally/ only. As 
\count@, \dimen@, ... get local assignments, they should not be changed 
globally accordingly. \dimen at i is allocated for /global/ changes in plain/LaTeX 
(but latex.ltx doesn't use it).

Cheers, 

    Uwe.