Jade and notations

[Paul Prescod <papresco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David Megginson wrote:
> It will always be dangerous to include raw TeX code inside generated
> TeX code -- the only safe thing would be to convert it to another
> format (ie. Postscript).  I cannot imagine how to protect against
> mismatched braces, etc.

That's really tragic. I had thought that that would have been one of the
best features of the TeX back end. But this brings up a related DSSSL
implementation question: is there a plan for some form of "notation
handler" in the various implementations (esp. Jade, since it is the one
I currently use) to allow us to convert from notations (.tex, .ps, .bmp)
to "standard formats" (.gif, .jpg, .bmp) as part of the style
application process? I would expect converters to be either linkable
modules like "back ends" or external programs that are run with the
external data on stdin (or perhaps command line for external entities).

 Paul Prescod