From:	mschulter AT DOT value DOT net (M. Schulter)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Mea culpa: Correction on DJGPP TeX and emTeX
Date:	19 Aug 1997 22:55:26 GMT
Organization:	Value Net Internetwork Services Inc.
Lines:	38
Message-ID:	<5td88u$cds$1@vnetnews.value.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host:	value.net
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Please let me thank Eli Zaretskii for a very important and helpful
correction regarding one of my previous posts about DJGPP TeX:

>> DJGPP Web2c TeX isn't a clone of EmTeX: it's a different implementation

> This is incorrect.  Both Texk (which was ported to DJGPP) and emTeX
> are mostly derived from the same sources.  If you look in the source
> distribution of the DJGPP port, you will see #ifdef's that are meant
> for building emTeX.

Eli's correction nicely warns about what can happen when someone who
has never written an #ifdef talks about C development and
"implementations."

The point is that being a desktop publishing enthusiast or PostScript
programmer may qualify me to evaluate DJGPP TeX as an end-user or even
to write some curious inline PostScript for a TeX document <grin>, but
not to judge whether two TeX releases are "different implementations."

For me to make such a statement just because of some apparent
differences in command line usages (e.g. 'initex' vs. 'tex386 -i') or
the like must be either outright wrong or very misleadingly
meaningless, which amounts to the same thing.

Also, I suspect that my raising the issue of whether or not DJGPP TeX is a
"clone" of emTeX was equally misleading: both seem to be near-identical
twins of the mostly identical parent sources <grin>.

Of course, Eli also explained the reasons for the DJGPP port -- an
explanation which I might wisely have left to him or other qualified
members of the DJGPP development team in the first place. 

Most respectfully,

Margo Schulter
mschulter AT value DOT net

 

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