splitting fontinst (was: Re: Copyright zzzz)

Lars Hellström Lars.Hellstrom@math.umu.se
Thu, 4 Feb 1999 18:13:39 +0100 (MET)


Ulrik:
>>> Is it feasible to break fontinst.dtx into several modules that could
>>> maintained more easily by different maintainers?
>
Lars:
>> I see no problem with this, and it would probably have
>> organisatorial advantages. Apart from the obvious changes, one only
>> has to set fontinst.ins up so that at least one of the files is read
>> twice (so that there is code for changing catcodes both the
>> beginning and the end of fontinst.sty). What could be worth some
>> thought here though is what should happen with the fontdoc
>> package. Should its commands be distributed around the current code
>> for fontinst.sty, or should it continue to reside separately?

Ulrik
>I don't understand the problem.  At the moment we have single source
>file (fontinst.dtx), which is used to generate several target files
>(fontinst.ini, foninst.sty, fontinst.dtx).  If it has organisational
>advantages, we could just as well have several *.dtx for various kinds
>of fontinst high-level or low-level commands that might be used to
>generate the same target files as before.

I began by saying I saw no problem with splitting up fontinst.dtx, right? :-)
Then I made an observation about a nontrivial point here: Since one should
have the code which changes catcodes at the beginning (and saves the
previous catcodes) of fontinst.sty in the same file as the code which
changes them back at the end of fontinst.sty, one of the source files would
have to be read twice by docstrip.

As for distributing the code for fontdoc around the code for fontinst.sty
however, I think it would be better, because then one would have the
definition of a command in one right next to its definition in the other.

Lars Hellström