An extremely powerful {macro}-based text formatter written by Donald
E. {Knuth}, very popular in the computer-science community (it is
good enough to have displaced Unix {troff}, the other favored
formatter, even at many Unix installations). TeX fans insist on the
correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all caps,
squished together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the
mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only
devices). Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX' -- such
as TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster
(competent TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique. See also {CrApTeX}.
Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining
quality of the typesetting in volumes I--III of his monumental Art of
Computer Programming (see {Knuth}, also {bible}). In a manifestation
of the typical hackish urge to solve the problem at hand once and for
all, he began to design his own typesetting language. He thought he
would finish it on his sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about
8 years. The language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV
of The Art of Computer Programming is not expected to appear until
2007. The impact and influence of TeX's design has been such that
nobody minds this very much. Many grand hackish projects have started
as a bit of {toolsmith}ing on the way to something else; Knuth's
diversion was simply on a grander scale than most.
TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
high-quality software. Knuth offers a monetary award to anyone who
found and reported bugs dating from before the 1989 code freeze; as
the years wore on and the few remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones
even harder to find), the bribe went up. Though well-written, TeX is
so large (and so full of cutting edge technique) that it is said to
have unearthed at least one bug in every Pascal system it has been
compiled with.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {CrApTeX}{grind}{troff}{WYSIAYG}]