25 Years of T E X and METAFONT: Looking Back and Looking Forward: TUG'2003 Keynote Address
Nelson H. F. Beebe · 2003
TEX has lasted longer than many other computer software technologies. This article reviews some of the history of TEX and METAFONT, how they have come to be used in practice, and what their impact has been on document markup, the Internet, and publishing. TEX has several design deficiencies that limit its use and its audience. We look at what TEX did right, and with 25 years of hindsight, what it did wrong. We close with some observations about the challenges ahead for electronic representation of documents.