Re: texi2dvi: A more pleasant way to compile

[Stepan Kasal]

Hi,

On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 09:35:04AM +0200, Akim Demaille wrote:
>  > OTOH, if you adopt my approach--build in a subdir, but copy the xref files
>  > after a successful compilation, you get all the advantages from Akim's
>  > initial patch decription [foot-2] and you are still backward compatible.
> 
> But you lose the persistence of the original aux files.  Unless you
> want to copy them first into the t2d dir?

yes, I wanted to copy them.

> I'm not sure that overall
> that's is simpler than supporting the traditional and the newer
> scheme.

It's not simpler, but it brings you the benefit that the old copy of dvi
is available during the compilation and it won't be lost if the compilation
crashes.  That's core of the benefits you listed.

>  > So I suggest that we first implement the backward compatible part.
>  > Akim, do you have time to extract that part of your patch?
> 
> If that's what it takes to have the newer scheme then, I'll do that :(

;-)

Don't take me too seriously.  Karl is the one who rules this land.

> My point is more that I have faced several times *incompatibilities*
> of aux files bw DVI and PDF that caused LaTeX to exist prematurely.
...
> Nevertheless, I agree that wanting both DVI and PDF is probably not a
> common situation.

No, I think it's an important situation.
So if problems appear in real life, then you are right, that should be
fixed. 

But as I said in my previous mail in this branch of discussion, getting
the backward compatibility with Automake right can be difficult; I'm
afraid we'll have to wait long before changing the default.

I see no big problems with your --build; I just said it cannot be made
the default, not yet.

Have a nice day,
        Stepan Kasal