Re: [Texmacs-dev] (For the Wikipedia article) Algorithms and format

[TeXmacs]

Hi Giovanni,

On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 05:58:07PM +0100, Giovanni Piredda wrote:
> I have a few questions, I am going to use the answers to improve the
> Wikipedia article

Thanks; that is very useful indeed.

Maybe you could also look at the translations in various languages.
With Google translate, you should be able to get at least very basic info right.
I noticed that some of the Wikipedia pages are hopelessly outdated.
For instance, the French page is not aware of the existence of a Windows 
version.

> 1) Which algorithm does TeXmacs use for line-breaking?

It is called "global" line-breaking, i.e. the algorithm takes into
account the whole paragraph to be rendered and optimizes the line breaks
globally for the whole paragraph.  This as opposed to "first-fit"
line-breaking, which simply finds the best line break for
every next line in succession.

LaTeX uses a similar algorithm.

> 2) Is the algorithm for page-breaking unique to TeXmacs? If not,
> what is it? Maybe the extension of the one for line-breaking?

TeXmacs uses a global algorithm for page-breaking,
which is extremely complex, because it also deals with
floating objects (figures, tables, footnotes, etc.) and
multi-column content.

LaTeX cannot do this.

> 3) Is the TeXmacs format a form of SGML? Regardless of whether it
> is, or it is not: how does it relate to SGML?

It is not SGML, but it is similar, with a well-defined syntax.

LaTeX has no well-defined syntax.  The grammar is Turing complete.

Best wishes, --Joris