Re: [Axiom-developer] build-improvements and latex

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

"Page, Bill" <address@hidden> writes:

| On Wednesday, November 08, 2006 8:19 AM Gaby wrote:
| > ...
| > Bill Page wrote:
| > | In my opinion it is only an accident that axiom.sty.pamphlet
| > | has this name and contains only one root chunk. In general this
| > | is not the case.
| > 
| > The axiom.sty.pamphlet is inded very special.  Its purpose and
| > its functionality are not the same like any others.  We should
| > not forget that. 
| > 
| 
| I don't understand. In what way is it special?

It is self-referencing, and foundational to anything else for Axiom
documentation, and therefore has a more intimate relationship with TeX
than others. 

| To me it looks
| just like any other "header" file and could easily be a chunk
| in some other latex-related file.

No argument there.

| It seems to me the only peculiarity here is with the latex
| command as reported by Waldek:
| 
| http://www.mail-archive.com/address@hidden/msg07222.html
| 
| that when given the command:
| 
|   \usepackage{axiom}
| 
| by default looks for
| 
|   axiom.sty.tex
| 
| in the current directory even though the common practice is to name
| the file
| 
|   axiom.sty
| 
| and to locate it in the shared texmf file tree. To me this is
| strange and unexpected. I cannot find this behaviour documented
| anywhere on the web. So it looks like a bug in tex to me.

Probably.

| Changing axiom.sty.pamphlet to axiom-sty.pamphlet and added a
| chunk named <<asxiom.sty>>= still seems like the right thing to
| do to avoid this "bug". I one sentence explanation in the pamphlet
| file should be enough documentation for such a simple change that
| is otherwise consistent with the rest of the Axiom source code.

I'm not disagreeing with that.  I'm explaning, *why* from my
perspective, that exception to the general rule is acceptable -- even
when I don't find it perfect or don't like it.

-- Gaby