Re: [9fans] tex on plan 9

Re: [9fans] tex on plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

> I last built the C version of TeX quite some time ago. At the time, it
> was quite portable.
>
> Imagine my surprise to go to the new stuff and find ... Makefile.in
> ... configure.
>
> I had no idea. So much for a new port :-)

modern tex reminds me of vger from star trek.  so much
encrusting junk, it's hard to find the original.

- erik

Re: [9fans] tex on plan 9

[ron minnich]

OK, found this: http://www.math.uni.wroc.pl/~hebisch/tex/

7 years old but 7 years newer than the plan 9 version. I have mailed
the author to see how it is going.

compiles (quickly!) and runs under ape.

ron

Re: [9fans] tex on plan 9

[erik quanstrom]

On Mon Oct  5 20:18:06 EDT 2009, rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
> I'm just now looking at tex on plan 9 and finding that a 14-year old
> release is not that useful with the newer packages.
>
> Has anyone tried newer stuff at all?

i just hate how the rush to use every last new feature
leads to things like gnu configure and autotools, and
ancient warhorses like tex no longer running.

- erik

Re: [9fans] tex on plan 9

[Jason Catena]

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 19:40, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> On Mon Oct  5 20:18:06 EDT 2009, rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
>> I'm just now looking at tex on plan 9 and finding that a 14-year old
>> release is not that useful with the newer packages.
>>
>> Has anyone tried newer stuff at all?
>
> i just hate how the rush to use every last new feature
> leads to things like gnu configure and autotools, and
> ancient warhorses like tex no longer running.

The software landscape is an ever-expanding forest of few blazed
trails, thickly covering new continents of human endeavor,
ever-diverging as each and every programmer customizes it to scratch
each itch and make it all more amenable for people less compatible
with a minimalist, elegant toolset mindset.  No gatekeepers, wardens,
librarians, or gardeners can suppress the wild profusion—folly to
try—but here and there a few likeminded souls hoe rows and cut
irrigation channels to cultivate the wild... and bicker about whether
an empty row should lie fallow quietly or pool water in error, and
whether to cut another row to satisfy each end.  That's what makes the
field cultivated, but all the same without commerce with the wild,
without incorporation of new ideas, it becomes a stagnant and hostile
exercise in standards-keeping.

> - erik

Jason Catena

Re: [9fans] tex on plan 9

[ron minnich]

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 5:40 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>
> i just hate how the rush to use every last new feature
> leads to things like gnu configure and autotools, and
> ancient warhorses like tex no longer running.

I last built the C version of TeX quite some time ago. At the time, it
was quite portable.

Imagine my surprise to go to the new stuff and find ... Makefile.in
... configure.

I had no idea. So much for a new port :-)

ron

[9fans] tex on plan 9

[ron minnich]

I'm just now looking at tex on plan 9 and finding that a 14-year old
release is not that useful with the newer packages.

Has anyone tried newer stuff at all?

thanks

ron