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[157.131.109.168]) by smtp.gmail.com with ESMTPSA id e15sm11629387pfv.23.2022.01.11.16.44.48 for (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 bits=128/128); Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:44:48 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <250868b3-9e0c-5ff2-8506-e2da5c73862a@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:44:48 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:91.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/91.4.1 Content-Language: en-US To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org References: From: Jon Forrest In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" This is clearly getting off track of TUHS. I'll stop after this reply. > *From:* Blake McBride > *Date:* January 11, 2022 at 2:48:23 PM PST > *To:* Jon Forrest > *Cc:* TUHS main list > *Subject:* *[TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7))* > Although I'm not connected with the TeX community, I don't agree with > much of what you said. > > 1. TeX source to C is fine - stable and works. It would be > impossible to rewrite TeX in any other language without introducing > bugs and incompatibilities. Leaving TeX as-is means that it can be > converted to other languages too if/when C goes out of style. TeX > as-is is exactly what it is. Anything else wouldn't be TeX. I agree that Web->C works but it's a major obstacle in doing any development work on TeX. Try making a major change in the Web source that requires debugging. Anything that can pass the TeX Trip Test can be called TeX. I know of a full C reimplementation that passes the test but the author doesn't want to make it free software. There are other rewrites out there that could be candidates but someone will enough power will have to proclaim one as the official TeX alternative. > 2. Drop DVI? Are you kidding me? Although PDF may be popular now, > that may not be the case 20 years from now. A device-independent > format is what is needed, and that's what DVI is. TeX is guaranteed > to produce the exact same output 100 years from now. And .PDF isn't? .DVI was great until .PDF matured. .DVI has almost no penetration these days, whereas .PDF is everywhere. I'm not saying that .PDF will always be the proper alternative but a properly rewritten TeX should make it much easier to replace .PDF will whatever comes next. > 3. I am curious about memory limitations within TeX. TeX has various fixed sized memory pools, and contains clever code to work around limited memory. Some of the newer TeXs, like LuaTeX, use dynamic allocation but this isn't official. Given how primitive things were when TeX was developed it's a miracle it works as well as it does. > 4. Knuth is getting up in age. Someone will have to take over. Exactly. I don't follow the TeX community so I don't know what they're doing about this. Jon Forrest