[texhax] inconsistency between pdftex and tex

[Philip TAYLOR [PC87S-O/XP]]

Ian Collier wrote:

[snip]

> Well, since Web2C does this (since 7.2 at least) I bet the version of
> TeX you are using right now does it too.  It's not something I ever use,
> but I don't really see what you have against this behaviour.

It's not TeX, it's something else.  Knuth is /very/ insistent that
only programs that conform to his strict requirements be called
"TeX".  A program which interprets a leading comment as a pragmat
cannot be called TeX; it should be called something else.

Philip Taylor
--------
>David Cantor wrote:

>| I have a latex file whose first line is "%&latex".  If I run this with
>| tex it reads the latex format file.  If I run it with pdftex it
>| doesn't and I have to use pdflatex.

>PdfTeX is behaving correctly; a TeX implementation has
>no business interpreting a comment as a pragmat.  I suggest
>you complain to author of your "TeX" implementation, since
>what has been supplied as "TeX" clearly doesn't meet Knuth's
>requirements for a program of that name.