Why incomplete subscript/superscript alphabet ?

[Mark E. Shoulson]

On 10/10/2016 05:36 PM, Julian Bradfield wrote:
> On 2016-10-10, Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com> wrote:
>
>> Apparently it’s used to good effect in mathematics, though a great
>> deal of TeX material appears printed and has an obvious “TeX” feel
> It's for printing, so of course it appears printed. The obvious TeX
> feel is the result of using the default style, which arises from
> Knuth's personal taste in mathematical typesetting, with Lamport's
> (abominable) taste in structural layout on top. There are tens of
> thousands of journals and books produced with LaTeX, in hundreds or
> thousands of styles.
>
> Among publishers you may have heard of, Addison-Wesley, CUP, Elsevier,
> John Benjamins, OUP, Princeton UP, Wiley all use LaTeX for a
> significant proportion of their output. They're all professionals.
>
To me, the main "TeX" feel that TeX-printed things tend to share is 
Knuth's distinctive Computer Modern font, not necessarily structure.  
You can typeset amazing things in TeX (viz. the Comparing Torah that 
Michael published for me); limitations there are mostly of your own making.

(I haven't really been able to keep up with this thread in general, though.)

~mark