keeping track of latex code


Hi,
My understanding of a tags file is that it creates a list about places
within files where new definitions have been defined within a
syntactic language.

It is very difficult to keep track of definitions, especially by a
massive project.

I have the following idea.
All primitives have a generational score as 1.

All definitions from the tags file which contain only primitives are
assigned a score of 2.

All definitions from the tags file which contain definitions which are
no greater than second generation are given a score of 3.

An so on.

By the 11th generation the 11th generation can be viewed as the
beginning of a thread (possibly mailbox format). The thread can be
expanded right down into any of it branches.

If a package writer needs to redefine an existing definition, so a
parallel branch using different namespace would be easier to
implement.

A definition which is contained in one branch may shown up red if some
other definition has redefined it.

Incorporation to additional packages and user interfaces and
compatibilities between packages might be imagined further.

any thoughts?

has it been done already?

david r

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