[pdftex] pdflatex vs. latex

[Martin Jansche]

On 15 Oct 2003, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:

> you might want to ask this on a neutral list! everyone here
> will back pdftex, I imagine.

If perhaps only for the reason that pdftex is (supposed to be) a
conservative extension of tex.  If you set \pdfoutput=0, it produces
.dvi ouput and could be used in place of standard tex.

> personally, I don't see the differences. well-written .sty files
> should do the right thing.

I've noticed differences in spacing before (perhaps due to poorly
written .sty files).

More to the point, I'm not sure I agree with the OP's sentiment about
too many tex executables/formats.  I never felt that was a problem;
teTeX makes the administration of a large texmf installation very
easy, IMHO.

- martin