Re: [9fans] tex

[tlaronde@polynum.com]

On Tue, Dec 08, 2009 at 02:30:49PM -0800, ron minnich wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:
> > somone was working on a modern port of TeX to plan9.
> > did this work out? I would like to update my installation
> > as I think I may be using LaTeX before long.
>
> I gave it a go but it wore me out. The pdflatex guys just destroyed
> latex portability, and tex overall is far less portable than it was
> years ago. It's a sad story.

I gave it a try too, but it's stalled---no abandon, but I have already
too much to do with the GIS.

For whose who would give it a try (my plan was/is to get rid of all the
GPL mess added, since TeX, METAFONT and the like are the stable parts;
that's all the mess added around that is a hell):

1) I first thought about trying to get an open source Pascal compiler
(there is at least one in the old BSD sources). There is/was a GNU
project, or at least a GPL project too. But Pascal is not my cup
of tea and I found messages from Donald Knuth, who was trying to
compile the software with this (so that TeX depends on nothing
else) and he finally gave up... Conclusion: if even he gave up,
I should perhaps take another way...

2) Second way: translate WEB to CWEB. For the format, this is easy. But
for the code, this is more or less what web2c does. So...

3) Retrieve the public version (Thomas Rockiki) of the original
translation stuff, and restart from this.

Personnally, my goal was only the core TeX and METAFONT, dvips and
MetaPOST without kpathsea---I use TeX and not LaTeX, and no pdfTeX
or the oriental extensions. A C89 translation will give the software
to Unices and Plan9 and save the system from the "bazaar" touch
that is the reciprocal of Midas': give it gold, it will give you
crap.

Let's hope someone takes this---I mean not compile the present mess, but
trim down to a pure Donald Knuth's base.
--
Thierry Laronde (Alceste) <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                 http://www.kergis.com/
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