[texhax] book to buy?

[Robin Fairbairns]

> > I fear lots of people may tell you this !
> > 
> > The essential reading is
> > 
> > Lamport, Leslie
> > LaTeX, A Document Preparation System
> > Addison-Wesley, 1994
> 
> I borrowed it from a friend and checked it out. It seems good but not a whole
> lot of pages.

it tries not to say much that's not needed.

> I would like to know more about how Latex works, that is, "the
> inner workings" so to speak.I have been told that Kopka's book is very
> extensive. But I don't know if it has more on "designing yourself"?!

there are no books, really, on how latex works.  k&d (i don't know
about kopka's german version) has extensive details on skating round
the periphery, but little (if anything) on the innards.

there was talk of a tome on design at one stage.  i don't know what
came of it.  i keep making fitful moves towards a web site that will
document latex internals, but i've not touched the prototype (plain
text) document for more than a month.  and i've no clear ideas about
extending it to "design considerations".