[twg-tds] storing scripts in the texmf tree

[Hans Hagen]

At 00:21 10/02/2004, Thomas Esser wrote:

>Hm... "lib" does not automatically stand for "platform-independent",
>same for "libexec". "share" is used for platform-independent stuff,
>but I don't like that name (and I don't like lib and libexec as well).

indeed, lib and exec immediately make me think of platforms so better avoid 
those terms

>Can't we just use the directory name "scripts" and define it as "directory
>containing platform-independent program code, for example classical script
>programs and java bytecode" in the tds document? I mean, we can't always
>expect to be able to express everything in a single word (directory name).

scripts sounds ok to me (pl,rb,py,jar,js,sh,etc)

>To answer Karl's question about the benefit:
>   - we solve the problem for one-file packages (for all languages)
>   - it all looks cleaner and more reliable if we can say
>       kpsewhich -format=scripts thumbpdf.pl
>       kpsewhich -format=scripts texexec.pl
>     instead of
>       kpsewhich -progname=perl -format='other text files' thumbpdf.pl
>       kpsewhich -progname=context -format='other text files' texexec.pl

yeah ... (it would simplify my texmfstart.rb script -)

>     Searching texmf/foo// by using
>       kpsewhich -progname=foo -format='other text files'
>     if foo is nothing like a program but a logical concept (or package
>     name) seems like a dirty trick anyway...

indeed, the 'other text files/binaries' has become fuzzy/overloaded anyway

just wondering: maybe kpsewhich can be extended by something

   in texmf.cnf:   format.whatever pathspec
   in kpsewhich:   -format=whatever

or so ...

Hans



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