CLtL2 latex macros and converter.

[Michael Clarkson <clarkson@malte.ensmp.fr>]

I started using the recently released version of CMU Common Lisp, and am
enjoying it immensely.  I find their documentation on the compiler and its
usage especially informative, and am very impressed with the overall
quality of the release.

In conversing with Rob MacLachlan, I asked and he replied:

   4) I take it that the documentation is set in scribe.  Are you attached
   to scribe, or would you be interested in converting it to LaTeX?
   I have some scribe->LaTeX tools, and have faced this before.

 No, we would like to move.  I noticed that there was a s2latex program in
 the tex distribution, and was considering using it. However, our usage is
 macro-heavy (to handle display of argument syntax, etc.)  We would like to
 more-or-less preserve the current macro abstraction in the documentation
 sources.  Our current format was based on Steele's macros for CLtL1, and we
 have guy's latex macros for CLtL2, and were planning to use them.  I can
 dig up the style if you are interested in doing this.

The reason I asked is that I would really like to have the CMU manuals on
line, and I have written a LaTeX version of Stallman's TeXinfo (called
LaTeXinfo naturally!), which allows the manual to generate LaTeX and the
FSF Info format.  This means a LaTeXinfo file can be viewed under GNU
Emacs, under an X-windows info browser, and also a termcap based info
browser.  Then once the manuals are converted from Scribe to LaTeX, it's
just a question of writing the corresponding the GNU Emacs code to handle
the special formatting features of the style file to generate the Info
document, which is usually not that hard.

I have some scribe->latex tools, but in the Colophon of CLtL2 you mention
a throwaway common lisp program that did the scribe->tex conversion for you.
Would you mind throwing away a copy of this program in my direction so I 
can take a look at it?  It may be better than the tools that I have, or
it may be a better starting point for me to use on the CMU manuals.

Many thanks in advance,

Mike.

P.S.	Totally and unequivocally unrelated to the above request, if CMU
and CLtL2 are using the same macro set, and the stype-fmt.el is written,
then the generation of CLtL2.info would be pretty automatic.  Would you and
the holders of the copyright to CLtL2 be adverse to making an info version
of CLtL2 available to the general public?  I seriously doubt that its
existence would hurt sales of the book much (Knuth's TeXbook is a good
example), and it would be a fantastic boon to CL programmers the world over
to have it on-line.  The info version could be copyrighted of course, and
it wouldn't be worth much as a printed substitute to the book without the
LaTeX source.  Just an interesting idea that presented itself in passing...

Mike Clarkson					mike@apl.ists.ca
C.R.E.S.S.					      - or -
York University, North York, Ontario,		mike@cmm.ensmp.fr
CANADA M3J 1P3					+33-1-64 69 47 98