Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!aries!mcdonald From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) Newsgroups: comp.text.tex Subject: Re: New Common TeX Message-ID: <1990Nov10.174758.6811@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 10 Nov 90 17:47:58 GMT References: <1990Nov4.000626.28089@portia.Stanford.EDU> Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News) Distribution: comp.text.tex Organization: School of Chemical Sciences, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 63 In article pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: >On 5 Nov 90 19:47:04 GMT, rusty@belch.Berkeley.EDU (rusty wright) said: > >rusty> Gack, you mean someone's still beating that dead horse? I mean, it's >rusty> stiff; it's drawing flies! I can't believe it. Use web2c; it >rusty> automatically generates the .c files from the web files so you get the >rusty> newest versions automagically. > >You must be joking of course. I'd rather have So would I >(and I am not alone in >this) You got that right!!! >any time Monardo's Common TeX than Knuth's implementation of TeX >(have you dared to read it?), No!!! (PUKE RETCH!!) >to which your description above applies >fairly well, especially if it is passed thru web2c (its embalmer). > >In order of increasing preference of TeX implementations *for Unix*: > >1) The Knuth version passed thru web and compiled by a pascal compiler. I don't AHVE any Pascal compilers --- I don't need a lobotomy either. > >2) The Knuth version passed thru web2c and compiled by a C compiler. > I tried on two systems and never even got it close to starting to working. >3) The Knuth version passed thru web and p2c and compiled by a C >compiler. Tolerable. Usually faster and easier to work with than either >of the above two hacks. > >4) Common TeX 2.93. Not bad, still twice as slow as troff. But smaller, >simpler and more comprehensible and Unix portable than Knuth's version >variously preprocessed. I tried this on both Unix and <> and on Unix it compiled and ran just fine the very first time. On the PC I just had to fix the filename syntax, that is all. > >5) Hopefully soon, Common TeX 2.95. Written in C using C as it should >be, without fixed table sizes, memory arrays, etc... Should be as fast >or faster than troff. Anxiously waiting for this. It should totally obsolete the Knuth's version. > >Note that Common TeX stil has the defect that in order to pass the trip >test is has to have the same grettable, verbose, ridiculous user >interface as Knuth's TeX. As soon as I get Common TeX 2.95 I will put in >a more Unixish user interface, conditionally compiled. Please post when you're done - and please make sure it is not TOO Unix specific. Unix-ish in concept but not tied tightly to Unix itself would be perfect. >Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Thanks for the nice remarks. Doug McDonald