From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Marcin Borkowski Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Elisp addiction not as bad in light of Linux forkoholism Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 17:14:42 +0100 Message-ID: <8761dwis25.fsf@wmi.amu.edu.pl> References: <873891sgaw.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417364136 31969 80.91.229.3 (30 Nov 2014 16:15:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:36 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Nov 30 17:15:28 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Xv79k-0004jV-3L for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 17:15:28 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50817 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xv79j-00046g-77 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 11:15:27 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:58090) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xv79P-00044T-Pb for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 11:15:13 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xv79F-0002rb-7j for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 11:15:07 -0500 Original-Received: from msg.wmi.amu.edu.pl ([2001:808:114:2::50]:43964) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xv79E-0002qn-WB for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 11:14:57 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by msg.wmi.amu.edu.pl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3F4CF42067 for ; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 17:14:54 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from msg.wmi.amu.edu.pl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (msg.wmi.amu.edu.pl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 1+8iJZJ4LEoh for ; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 17:14:54 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from localhost (unknown [212.67.140.17]) by msg.wmi.amu.edu.pl (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 135ED42061 for ; Sun, 30 Nov 2014 17:14:53 +0100 (CET) In-reply-to: <873891sgaw.fsf@debian.uxu> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:808:114:2::50 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:101317 Archived-At: On 2014-11-30, at 01:06, Emanuel Berg wrote: > It is simple: Don't fork - program. Wow, it's rant time! So you're in for a treat: I have a spare minute, and let me share a story with you. (I guess I read it in some interview, I don't remember now.) When DEK coded TeX (and published the cource code), he thought that many people will actually customize TeX (=the engine) to their needs. It turned out that (apparently) the macro programming was more powerful than he expected: almost nobody did that, people did wonderful things at the macro level, without ever touching the source code (apart from increasing the memory constraints, which required recompliation back then). This includes not only LaTeX and its styles (later: classes and packages), but also a BASIC and Lisp interpreters, a few numerical engines, a regex engine (recently), an XML parser and much more. (This is, in fact, an oversimplification; some of these things require e-TeX, which is a relatively small extension to the engine.) The real hacking on the underlying engine did happen, of course, but not that often. Most notably, we have e-TeX, pdfTeX (which is great), pdfeTeX (which combines both of them); then we have XeTeX (originally only on Mac, now also Win and Linux), Omega and Aleph, and - most recently - LuaTeX (which is the most serious modification, and a very well designed one AFAIK). (There were admittedly smaller extensions, like encTeX, but they could be technically just patches, not "forks".) Not really that many "forks", for a program more than 30 years old. Especially that eTeX and pdf(e)TeX are not considered forks now, rather legal successors (hardly anyone uses the original tex engine nowadays), and LuaTeX gains more and more traction; some (me included) hope that it will mostly replace the more conservative versions some day. (LuaTeX is AFAIK the only one which took the idea of giving TeX really new things seriously.) (Well, there was also NTS, but it was really a clone, not a fork, and it is almost "evaporated" in Orwellian sense (even the sources are nowhere on the 'net!) - go figure.) I guess it is a bit similar as in the Emacs world. If you make a program flexible enough, people won't fork it too much - they just won't need it. (The existing forks solved some /real problems/: 8-bit-ness with Omega, complicated dvi->ps->pdf route with pdfTeX, limited registers and other constraints with eTeX, impossibility of RtL typesetting with Omega and XeTeX, lack of access to system fonts with XeTeX, problems with advanced programming and other things with LuaTeX.) Just my 2 cents. (And re: Debian vs Ubuntu, I never used Debian, but Ubuntu is a huge disappointment: it has been less and less usable recently (especially compared to, say, five or seven years ago), and it will be kicked out of my machine when I have a few spare days to do a reinstall.) Best, -- Marcin Borkowski http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science Adam Mickiewicz University