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From: haahr@adobe.com
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To: rc@archone.tamu.edu
Subject: curiosity and catenation

a few weeks back, i suggested that it would be useful to add cross-product  
style conctatenation to rc, and got heartily flamed by most readers of the  
flame.  i was asked many times what it would be useful for:  i actually  
have several times needed something like that, but i will admit it is rare.   
John Mackin, in an aside, asked me whether i could find a use for rc's  
current pairwise concatenation; except for a few contrived examples, i  
can't think of a reasonable way to use it.  i've talked to Byron about this  
a little, and a couple of other people, and no one has come up with a good  
use for it.

[ i don't mean concatenation of a 1 element list with an n element list, i  
mean an n element list with a n element list. ]

therefore, i am offering a small prize to the first person who comes up  
with a NON-CONTRIVED example of using pairwise concatenation.  by contrived  
i mean something that somebody would not do except to use this feature of  
rc.  i would most like an example that has actually been used before this  
message was sent out, but one that you come up with explicitly to answer my  
question is fine.

the prize:  one (real, official, shrink-wrapped) font package of your  
choice from the adobe type library.  retail price of these things is  
typically US$ 150-300.  if you don't care about fonts, maybe i can hunt  
something else up.

the deadline:  August 20th, 23:59:59 PDT.  (that's two weeks or so from  
now.  should be enough time.)

send entries to:	haahr@adobe.com   or   ...!decwrl!adobe!haahr

the judges:  me and Byron.  we have the right to be completely arbitrary.   
we'll also post all entries to the net after the contest is over.  if you  
don't want your name associated with your suggestions, say so.