[tex-live] Bug in syntax package

[David Kastrup]

"John R. Culleton" <john at wexfordpress.com> writes:

> On Wednesday 06 September 2006 19:00, David Kastrup wrote:
>> karl at freefriends.org (Karl Berry) writes:
>> >     When I wrote, "I have no idea where this version of
>> >     syntax.sty comes from" I meant, "because it's not the one
>> >     from CTAN".
>> >
>> > I have no idea either, but I have just updated the version in TL
>> > from CTAN.  Thanks much for pointing this out.  Er, deleted all
>> > the dvi files too.  Well, maybe someday there will be pdf's :).
>>
>> Frankly, for something like TeXlive, I don't see the point in
>> having PDFs instead of DVI.  Take up much more space (how many
>> copied of cmr10 do we want on the disk?) and are much slower to
>> access.  TeXlive has a viable and fast viewer for DVI, one could
>> even set up the DVI files to be compiled with source specials into
>> the source tree, and if any Type3 fonts happen to end up in the
>> PDF, they are at fixed resolution, whereas with DVI one still has a
>> chance to render them properly for the configured printer.
>
> If we could agree on a convention for naming the documentation files
> (so that they are not confused with the actual macro being
> documented) then putting the source of the documentation out there
> would be the best thing IMO.

Well, TeXlive certainly comes with the documentation source.  What
isn't there is a system to access it, but the legibility of LaTeX
source would make that a mixed blessing without a special reader.

> If an European puts documentation out there it will likely be in an
> A paper size. An American will use letter size. In either case it is
> an awkward size for someone's printer.  Given the .tex version of
> the document one can adjust one or two statements and get the
> correct size for local printing.

Having a more direct way of recompiling documentation might be nice.
I am rather sceptical, however, whether doing this on demand would be
good idea.  It would cause delays when you need the info fastest.

> OTOH if you put a dvi out there then I must convert it to to pdf in
> one or two steps and print it via Acrobat Reader, using the "fit to
> paper size" feature. This shrinks the document which makes it harder
> to read. (My eyes are old.)

I don't see that this would be different with preprovided PDF files.

> I haven't tested it this AM but intuitively actual source would be
> smaller than even dvi.

Depends on whether the source listing is included in the target file,
or just the documentation part.  For the CTAN browsing clientele, a
PDF without code listing is probably appropriate, for the installed
system, a DVI with code listing and maybe source specials.

The current one-size-fits-all is not really the most persuasive to me.
At one point of time, we'll have to come up with something less rare.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum