% intro.tex - introduction

\line{\qquad \dots or, Just what {\it is} \ctex\ anyway?}

It is perhaps necessary first to define what \ctex\ is {\it not}.
\ctex\ is not a complete rewrite of \TeX\ in C.  It is a tribute to the
skill of its author Donald E.~Knuth that, despite the fact that \TeX\
was written in a subset of {\csc pascal} that does not include even,
e.g., memory allocation, this has not yet proven necessary.

Nor is \ctex\ a monolithic system.  Rather, it is a collection of small
programs---tools---that work together to provide a large number of
operations from a small set of operators.  The author believes that
this has been a problem with older \TeX ware:  each program has built
into many of the same functions, but using different code that produces
different results or requires differing and sometimes incompatible
controls.  This is an unnecessary complication that can be resolved by
moving those functions, either into separate programs, or into library
code that is then shared directly.  This is the approach that has been
taken in \ctex.