Re: stepping down as project manager

[David Kastrup]

Marc Hohl <address@hidden> writes:

> Conclusion: I appreciate your latest work – it is just that I am not
> used to use \omit, \single, \undo and therefore bringing \temporary
> into line with the (yet unfamiliar) rest of the new stuff takes just some
> time. Perhaps I am not the only one who has these "problems".

\hide and \omit are pure convenience shorthands.  They don't provide any
new functionality and you are perfectly fine not knowing about them.  On
the other hand, they might be easier to know about than stencil and
transparency.  So they are off the chart.  Ignore them, and you don't
lose anything.

\single is a converter.  We have a wealth of functions doing overrides
in property-init.ly.  We don't want to introduce separate names for
doing the same thing via tweaks, and \single saves us from that.  It is
a single new name instead of dozens.  Which I consider a good deal.

\once creates a one-time-step temporary change, \temporary an
unterminated temporary change which can be terminated element-wise with
\revert or, again using a converter, en bloc from the original overrides
with \undo.

Temporary changes are important enough that we have had \once for a long
time already.

Every thing brings something that is nice to have, and most something
that is not easy to replace.  You can always choose to not hear about
them, and not use them.  You are not worse off than before they existed.
At least if the documentation writer structures things in a manner that
you can stop reading at the point when you stop being interested.

It is not the new stuff that is being the problem, and it is not me.
The new stuff solves old problems, it does not create those problems.
If you don't want to hear about the old problems and their solutions,
you don't need to look at the new stuff.  Just move on if you are not
interested.

-- 
David Kastrup