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Thanks for the details! It is amazing to me that TeX has lasted so long. I would conjecture that this abstract style and the resulting portability are a big p
by chubot 9y ago
Thanks for the details! It is amazing to me that TeX has lasted so long. I would conjecture that this abstract style and the resulting portability are a big part of it.
I didn't know the name Pascal-H -- that is analogous to "OPy" in my mind. Although OPy I expect it to diverge from Python for efficiency reasons -- that's the whole point. It will probably look superficially like Python for a long time.
Why are there so many Pascal(WEB)-to-C converters? Why wouldn't they all use the same one? I guess I don't understand what TeX distribution is. Are there multiple maintainers? I would have thought they would have converged over time.
(FWIW the "system dependencies" docs are exactly what I meant. Most programs are littered with implementation details; there is no clear separation between them and their environment. But it sounds like Knuth is highly aware of them, and localizes them within the code. Obviously you need system dependencies to get anything done.)
- svat 9y agoI don't know why everyone doesn't use the same converter! I haven't looked into any of them in detail… As for what a TeX distribution is: it's all the stuff (beyond the source code of TeX itself, which is maintained solely by Knuth) needed to get TeX and related systems in a usable form. This includes the to-C converter and build scripts, for TeX and for other programs/extensions like pdfTeX, the major macro packages like LaTeX and “format files” for them, font information for commonly used fonts, lots of “packages” written by lots of people over the years, hyphenation rules for languages, other programs like makeindex etc., DVI viewers and converters, TeX editors — the entire ecosystem that a typical TeX user may want. (Some distributions more minimal than others… TeX Live and MiKTeX are probably the two main ones today.)