Evolutions in typesetting systems

Using text previewers to browse code and documentation has uncovered some of the basic limitations of classical typesetting systems. Problems arise from the use of embedded markup, the reliance on context-free grammars, and monolithic typesetter design. Some aspects of each of these problems are discussed. A typesetter architecture is proposed that does not require markup or grammars, and that employs a functional decomposition of the typesetting task, in which object-oriented inheritance is used to manage the interaction between modules.