Re: texexec

["John R. Culleton" <john@wexfordpress.com>]

On Thursday 04 May 2006 18:03, Hans Hagen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to make the ruby version of texexec the default. Are there any
> strong objections to this?
>
> Also, i'd like the stubs to run texmfstart as launcher. For that purpose
> i'll add a /scripts/context/stubs/[mswin|unix] path with the default stubs
> that one can copy to some bin path
>
> Hans
>
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I am of the school of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Ruby
seems to be one of those small-market languages like Lisp etc.
and I worry when important software becomes dependent on such 
things. For example Xindy is dependent on I think Lisp and that
has handicapped its development and acceptance majorly. If
Slackware decides not to include Ruby any more then I will have a
problem. 

Of course as the developer you need to use the tool that fits your
hand best. And I did test out newtexexec (through a clumsy call)
and it seemed to work ok. I think the messages are different
however. I will have to do a differential to make sure. 

Are there things that can be done in Ruby that can't be done
conveniently in Perl? Conversely, are there things that can be
done in Perl that are more elegant than what can be done in Ruby?
I am thinking of perl/Tk for a nice gui interface for example. 

Just worrying out loud. 
-- 
John Culleton
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