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I'm not sure that's feasible.. there are exactly zero independent TeX or TeX-like implementations, everything is patches on top of TeX, which probably has a rea
by dom0 9y ago
I'm not sure that's feasible.. there are exactly zero independent TeX or TeX-like implementations, everything is patches on top of TeX, which probably has a reason (given the general open source community's inclination to rewrite things). I am by no means an expert on TeX internals, but just cursory browsing of the code makes it look like a rather massive and complex piece of software.
- pkgwilliams 9y agoThe C/C++ code add up to about 120,000 lines. Yes, it is massive and complex. Fortunately, the core engine is essentially self-contained. Almost all of the things that make the TeX frustrating come from the UX, or the difficulty of adding new capabilities that call for somewhat more modern C code. By compiling all of the C with a Rust wrapper, we get a single binary out in the end, plus the ability to extend the engine in ways that were just not feasible before. Revamping the core engine code from C to Rust would be nice, because it could be cleaner and more comprehensible, but it actually doesn't buy you anything in terms of the UX. Edit: also, I didn't realize this when I made the decision to fork XeTeX, but LuaTeX has shifted to a C implementation that is more or less detached from the original WEB code.