[tex-live] TL 2010 : Does XeLaTeX search for Emacs, and if so, why ?!

[Zdenek Wagner]

2010/9/6 Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) <P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk>:
>
>
> Reinhard Kotucha wrote:
>
>> I don't think it makes much sense.  The point is that you never should
>> rely on compile-time defaults.  TEXEDIT is a per-user variable and
>> should always be set it the environment of a particular user.  In
>> texmf.cnf this variable is deliberately not set for this reason and
>> because there is only one texmf.cnf for all platforms.
>
> OK, let me stop [you] there -- all that seems fine, /but/ :
>
> 1) The TeXlive Installer does not ask the user which editor
>   he or she prefers to use (I think it should), and
>
It might be easy to implement, similary as the installer ask the
default paper size.

> 2) In the absence of any editor being specified, the default
>   action of the binary should be to report "No editor
>   specified : please set TEXEDIT and re-run".
>
> Both of these are IMHO, of course.  But there /may/, of course,
> be security risks associated with executing an arbitrary piece
> of code that just happens to be called "Emacs.exe", "Emacs.bat"
> or whatever, as the calling code has no way of knowing whether
> this is "real" Emacs or some nasty Trojan horse ...
>
> ** Phil.
>



-- 
Zdeněk Wagner
http://hroch486.icpf.cas.cz/wagner/
http://icebearsoft.euweb.cz