Re: What should I learn?

[Taco Hoekwater <taco@elvenkind.com>]

Mauricio wrote:
>>> I also like to write programs (I use a really
>>> nice language named Haskell). Do you thing I
>>> could get what I want if I write or translate
>>> typography functions to that language, and then
>>> write programs to generate documents? Where
>>> could I find or where could I learn about such
>>> functions?
>> You can also have a look at ant http://ant.berlios.de/. It is not as big 
>> as TeX and is written in Ocaml, so you may find it easier to understand 
>> than the source code of TeX (a mixture of pascal, change files, and C).
>>
> 
> Great! Thanks! There's a lot there I can study.

IIRC, earlier versions of ant were actually written in haskell.

Regarding stuff to read: the typeset version of the (pdf)tex source
((pdf)tex.web+(pdf)tex.ch after processing by weave) is probably still
the best "beginner's book" if you want to start implementing a general
typesetting system. And then there is the design documentation of
Basser Lout and Ant, but most other published research except is in
scientific journals and/or PhD Theses.


Best wishes,
Taco
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