Federico Beffa <be...@ieee.org> writes: >>> 5. Existing documents are very easy to fix. >>> >> >>Backwards compatibility is important. It has been broken >>before, for very good reasons, and even though it was done very >>carefully, it still caused many problems (still does). >>So I don't buy the "very easy to fix" part: it will bite somebody >>two minutes before he/she has to make a presentation (or even during the >>presentation - DAMHIKT). > > Don't get me wrong, I value backward compatibility. > > However, here for the end user the change would amount to something like > > if \[ is not at the beginning of a line, then insert \n before \[ > if \] does not end a line, then insert \n after \] > > for the whole document (or something similar). This should obviously > be documented in the release notes where an exact procedure to fix the > document can be detailed (possibly two query-replace expressions). > > And if somebody updates just before a presentation and without reading > the release notes, then it's his own fault. >
It's a bit more complicated than that: one upgrades org at some opportune moment, then three months/years/centuries later, tries to use that presentation that worked perfectly before - boom. If you go back and check all your old presentations each time you upgrade org, you are, I would guess, the exception, not the rule. I certainly don't do that Just to be clear: on the whole issue you bring up, I'm more or less neutral (slightly negative to be sure, mostly because I'm not convinced that it's a serious problem, but I could live with it either way). I generally put displays in separate paragraphs, I rarely use autofill[fn:1] and I'm happy to do M-q on individual paragraphs instead, but if I happen to do it on the wrong paragraph (backtraces, code fragments, displayed equations), undo is easy enough. Footnotes: [fn:1] I use it in gnus message composition modes by default, and I often swear at it and turn it off because it does things that I don't want it to do - mostly mangles backtraces and code fragments; I probably should turn it off completely. -- Nick
