[OS X TeX] {DON'T} Use $$...$$, in LaTeX

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 8 sept. 06 à 18:29, André Bellaïche a écrit :

> Le 8 sept. 06 à 16:58, Herbert Schulz a écrit :
>
>> Under ordinary circumstances it appears that \[...\] and \(...\)  
>> are equivalent to $$...$$ and $...$ respectively. The difference  
>> is that the former are macros while the latter are TeX primitives  
>> (in the sense that they are set via category code to be math  
>> escape). That means that the former can be redefined when needed;  
>> e.g., I believe tex4ht treats \(...\) and $...$ differently.
>
> Thanks all for these informations. Don't forget that my only  
> argument was that $$ is much more visible in a source file that \[,  
> even when the latter is the only macro on its line.

It used to be that \( and \) were fragile commands, in LaTeX sense,  
meaning that they produced errors (generally accompanied by a very  
cryptic error message) in case they were used in a moving argument  
without being preceded by \protect. For example, I think I remember  
times when using \( and \) inside \caption produced errors.

I think such nonsense is now gone, namely that more and more LaTeX  
commands have now been made robust.

That's one of the reasons I still use $ and $ in place of \( and \).  
That, and the fact that I used plain TeX exclusively for about two  
years before learning LaTeX, and old habits are hard to get rid of.  
Maybe if Don Knuth had used € instead of $, then I would be more  
worried of typing so many $$$s ;-)

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