[OS X TeX] Textures vs. TeXShop typesetting speed

[Anthony Morton]

> I would have thought running this optimized code now in emulation mode 
> in Classic would make it significantly slower, maybe I'm wrong.

No - the beauty of Classic is that it's not an emulator, it's a 
compatibility environment that allows Classic apps to run 'natively' on 
top of OS X.  This means that in principle, Classic apps will run just 
as fast in the Classic environment under OS X as they will in OS 9.

That's certainly my perception with MATLAB 5.2 - the only Classic app I 
still use regularly, and a fairly heavy number cruncher to boot.

It was a point in favour of Textures that it could use its status as a 
single monolithic application to advantage, and build very close links 
between the typesetting engine and the display renderer.  The drawback 
was that it was unable to link into 'mainstream' TeX development, which 
relies on maintaining a separation between typesetting and display.  
This fundamental design difference means that visual feedback in 
TeXShop may not be as instantaneous as in Textures, but the ongoing 
development effort means it won't be long before TeXShop catches up.

Tony

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