[tex-live] tl17 pretest init

Philip Taylor P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk
Thu Apr 20 18:47:59 CEST 2017



Norbert Preining wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Apr 2017, Philip Taylor wrote:
>> When I was still an active programmer, extensions were typically three letters and intuitively obvious -- ".pas" = Pascal source, ".for" = Fortran source, ".obj" = object file, ".exe" = executable image and so on; single letter extensions really convey nothing other than to the /cognoscenti/.
> Hmmmm ... let me count ... around early 70ies .c became common for C
> source code, that means, you haven't been actively programming for
> nearly 50 years.
I have /never/ programmed in C (thank God), but I continue to program in JavaScript, C-sharp, Algol 68 (and, of course, TeX) to this day.  And I was still programming in Pascal, Fortran, VAX/VMS assembler and so on well into the early 90's -- not everyone leapt on the C/Unix bandwagon.
> I am deeply impressed with your eagerness to write a GUI with that
> lack of history...
"Eagerness", no -- I have better things to do with my time -- but a willingness to /try/ to contribute to TeX Live's development, even if you personally believe that a lack of familiarity with single-letter extensions and what is, to my mind, the most execrable programming language even to have been let loose pose an almost insuperable obstacle to success.  Writing a Windows GUI from scratch, I would regard as an impossible task(for myself); attempting to write one with the add of a framework such as Electron would seem not only to be potentially achievable but also interesting, challenging and worthwhile.

** Phil.



More information about the tex-live mailing list