Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cme!cam!ARTEMIS
From: miller@cam.nist.gov (Bruce R. Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: Really GENERIC questions on TeX
Message-ID: <2857307721@ARTEMIS.cam.nist.gov>
Date: 18 Jul 90 16:35:21 GMT
References: <1048100001@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <7854@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>
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Followup-To: comp.text.tex
Organization: NIST - Center for Computing and Applied Mathematics
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In article <1048100001@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu writes: 
>  ...
> With an ordinary programming language like C or Pascal, it turns out to be
> relatively easy to take what someone gives you and compile it, load it, and
> come up with a runnable program.  I'm not a programmer of Pascal and never
> will be, but yet I've had to compile programs in Pascal and this seems to
> always be easy.  It is made even easier with make.
> 
> With text formatting systems, it seems these things are always hard to do.

I'ld just say you've been luckier  with programming languages so far  --
even with  make.  I  think  you  are  probably  more  likely to run into
portability problems with regular programs than something like TeX;  TeX
is defined more independently of OS's, hardware etc.  One result is that
it produces  `Device  independent'  output,  which,  as  you discovered,
forces you to find the OS & hardware dependent way to turn it to
postscript, hp-language or dots and print it! 

Also, I think that most often people sending out .c .pas .lisp .tex .fubar
are implicitly expecting that the recipient knows c, pascal ...

Most of your questions were well answered by

In article <7854@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>, Hosek, Donald A. writes: 
> In article <1048100001@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu writes...
> 
> >					....  Is this (sending
> >macros with .tex) common in exchanging documents in TeX?
> 
> Yep. LaTeX users (at least intelligent ones) can generally avoid
> this problem.

Educate me! This is a problem I've always run into with sending &
recieving (La)TeX files.  With make or defsystem you have a clear
indication of what files are needed; so you know what needs to be sent.

No, I take that back, even then with c at least, the header files are
hidden in the sources analogously to TeX \input's and are seldom (?)
mentioned in make files. (Lisp defsystem's are a bit better: they provide
information to be used for compiling, loading, distributing,
hardcopying...)

Anyway, any tex file I've written or recieved has ALWAYS got a couple of
\input's of sundry macro's and tools, and occasionally a special .sty
[Like Phil's example BTW !]  I always put these at the very top, 
IMMEDIATELY after \documentstyle, so they're easy to find; But they
still have to be LOOKed for! and they occasionally get missed.
People who've sent me TeX aren't always quite as `organized'.
Is this what you're suggesting or do you have a better model?

Another problem is  you've got  to avoid  having any  directory names on
included files.  Luckily  with the  Unix C  version I  can add  to a TeX
`path' so I can use macros from  a ~/TeX/ directory wherever my doc  is,
but with other  versions I  used, this  wasnt possible.  And if  you are
using any \specials to include  postscript graphics, even when  you know
the other people are using postscript this creates problems to find  all
the extra files that need to be sent.  This is getting abit far from the
original question, but any Suggestions?

Bruce