[tex-k] The four numeric non-numeric macros in tex.web

[Andreas Scherer]

Doug,

According to the WEB manual 'webman.tex' (section 'Macros' on page 5), 
"The numeric value must be less than 2^15 = 32768 in absolute value.", 
so at least 'max_halfword' and 'deplorable' would not qualify as values 
in numeric macros.

Using the original, unmodified TANGLE from 
https://github.com/ascherer/web confirms this with an error message "! 
Value too big: 65535." for '@d max_halfword = 65535'.

TeX Live's TANGLE _does_ grok significantly larger values, but that is 
obviously non-standard behavior in contrast to the WEB manual. ;o)

So, it would be wise to keep Don's notation in tex.web.

(I find several other simple '==' macros with plain constants in mf.web, 
dvicopy.web, gftodvi.web, gftype.web, and gftopk.web.)

Happy WEB programming!

Andreas