[tex-live] Better ways to find packages and documentation

[Florent Rougon]

Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at> wrote:

>>                    < Python is executable pseudo-code. >
>
> Perl, too.

(then mustn't have the same definition of pseudo-code...)

[...]

> Yes, but we are growing from below, not above. That makes the
> difference.

As in, "640 Ko ought to be enough for everyone"...

[...]

> What is not clear is:
> - what about stuff available from the network?

The DB files should list whatever is "available". If something is
available that doesn't even come from TL, then the admin has to add it
somehow to the DB if he wants the users to be able to find that stuff
from the central package&doc browsing place.

> I am schizophrenic, I am not thinking about this NOW. Here my primary
> obligations are with TeX Live for now. Adaptions for OS packaging should
> follow.

IMHO, this is short-sighted. If fmtutil.cnf had been thought with
distributors in mind, we would have divided the number of RC bugs on the
teTeX and TL Debian packages by at least a factor 3, I think (and we
would not even need this ugly special-casing of jadetex and xmltex in
update-fontlang).

> Even if it is in principle better to use xml, it is still some practical
> decision about who is programming this stuff. And that is Karl,
> Reinhard, and me.

Right, my intent has never been to change your format; I'm not that
arrogant. It was mainly to ensure that future versions do embed the data
I'll need, and to reduce your work by telling you *now* what I need,
instead of later when the formats are more difficult to change because
more things, such as the installer, rely on them. I only pointed out in
a few places how XML would make things more robust, but that's it.

-- 
Florent