[OS X TeX] Automatic labeling for references

[Alain Schremmer]

On Apr 4, 2008, at 10:18 PM, David Watson wrote:
> Good grief!
>
> I would never EVER use a random label number. The whole purpose of  
> using labels and references is to make it memorable.

That's if you still have a functioning memory. Mine is fading fast.

> \label{eulersformula} is WAY more memorable than \label 
> {x89237kjalsdfi134}

Er, I can't remember whether I had EulerFormula, eulerformula,  
Eulerformula, Euler_formula, etc .I am going crazy!

> Why would anyone ever do something like that?
>
> If you are confused about which of Euler's formulas you are trying  
> to reference, just use the "search" or "find" functionality of your  
> text editor to look for euler and track it down.
>
> As long as you use a consistent method of labeling,

Ah, but consistency is so hard to attain …

> finding references should not be difficult.

Nothing is simple.

> Something like "euler-function" "euler-function-identity" "maxwell- 
> hertz" "heaviside-hertz" "maxwells-silver-hammer" would help to  
> narrow it down

Yeah, and all that then remains is … See above.

> without forcing you to do things diametrically opposed to the  
> entire philosophy of TeX/LaTeX.

I can't stand philosophy—but I do like drinking with philosophers.  
Actually, some of my best friends …

> Excuse me, I have to go drink away the brain cell that just thought  
> it saw some craziness about random numbers and labels.

1) I apologize: I truly didn't mean to drive you to drink—not that  
there is anything wrong with that, depending of course on what it is  
that you are drinking—but I strongly object to driving anyone to  
anything.

2) Not all texts require the same kind of referencing. In the current  
case, I mostly want to reference sections in "lessons" politely  
called chapters for students who need the page number too—which I am  
going to do once I have the labeling in place.

3) I agree that the randomness was superfluous but this was not the  
reason I got lost which I don't recall.

4) In any case, I am still grateful to Sergei Mariev for the macro he  
gave me because, previous to that, I was going crazy fast because I  
couldn't remember these ravishingly mnemonic labels I was concocting  
particularly as the section titles kept changing. With meaningless  
labels, sequential or random, I just have to go and look it up  
whatever section renaming has taken place. That his macro eventually  
failed to work for me was due to my own limitations and this is why I  
would like an automatic labeling of ALL sections.

Apologetic regards
--schremmer