Re: forwarded message from Jeff Licquia
Henning Makholm writes:
> Scripsit Anthony DeRobertis <asd@suespammers.org>
> > On Sat, 2002-07-20 at 17:32, Henning Makholm wrote:
>
> > > However, when I modify the name of size12.clo I need to make sure that
> > > article.cls can find my modified file. For example, article.cls
> > > contains something like
> > > \DeclareOption{12pt}{\renewcommand\@ptsize{2}}
> > > ...
> > > \input{size1\@ptsize.clo}
> > > so I need to modify that logic; otherwise things will not work.
>
> > info kpathsea
>
> If you read forward in the thread, you'll see that Frank has later
> described workarounds to the renaming rule which I think address
> my misgivings satisfactory.
>
> However, kpathsea filename aliases are not one of the workarounds that
> I find satisfactory. I wouldn't want to conclude that LaTeX is free
> when it is run on the web2c TeX implementation but not when it is run
> on another TeX implementation.
neither do i. The point is that TeX is working on so many platforms (including
strange beasts like MVS (yes I had it working on such an OS and i think it is
still used at EDS :-) or Multics (sorry, multics is not a strange beast
really) or whatever and therefore the only real working methods are those that
only require TeX or a comparable interpreter to be around.
And as TeX is something which is (basically fixed) that means it has to work
on the macro level of TeX.
This is why in the LaTeX world these days, installation and unpacking scripts
are usually done as little TeX programs, because then they work automatically
on any TeX installation.
So while I like kpathsea (up to some point) I wouldn't consider it a general
solution to anything, simply because it isn't generally available.
But the remapping feature in a kernel is something that would automatically
work on any TeX installation (even if its file structure is unusual --- latex
lerns about the file structure on boot time and the remapping code would use
that information if necessary).
frank
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