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

[Page, Bill]

On Wednesday, November 08, 2006 3:11 AM Martin Rubey wrote:
> 
> I pressed C-c C-c in gnus, not in the pamphlet... Sorry, 
> continuation below
>

What is 'gnus'?
 
> Martin Rubey <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > 
> > Ralf Hemmecke <address@hidden> writes:
> > 
> > > What speaks so much against just adding .tex?
> > 
> > I'd also speak in *favour* of simply adding .tex. It makes 
> > life easier also in other places: 
> > 
> > ### The following is only for those who use auctex in emacs 
> > for latexing!) ###
> > 
> > I use auctex and added a dead simple "document" command. 
> > Thus I can visit a pamphlet file (for example, by clicking in
> > HyperDoc on INT.spad)
> > 
> > make some changes
> > 
> > press
> > 
> > C-c C-c
> 
> enter document

What does your 'document' command do?

I presume that it runs noweave and latex to create the dvi
file?

> 
> press C-c C-c again
> 
> auctex proposes "View". But of course, the parameter is wrong,
> it is
> 
> name.pamphlet.dvi
> 
> instead of
> 
> name.dvi
>

Why does emacs simply assume .dvi should be appended? Is this
because it does not know that .pamphlet files create .dvi
files? I presume that if the file ends in .tex then the
parameter that emacs proposes would not be

  name.tex.dvi

which would be wrong in most cases.

Perhaps you can somehow configure emacs so that .pamphlet is
similar to .tex as an extension and should be ignored when
proposing the parameter for tex-view?

 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I fail to see a reason why simply adding the tex is a bad idea.
> 
> But very often in this Makefile business I only know half of 
> the story, so please don't be angry with me.
> 

I do not think "anger" would be appropriate here... :-)

I would give the following reasons why it is bad:

1) All other programs that I can think of that process an
   input file with a given extension, generate output files
   by replacing the extension with one appropriate to the
   output. E.g.

     latex name.tex --> name.dvi
     dvipdfm name.dvi --> name.pdf

   In latex this happens even if the extension is not .tex

     latex name.pamphlet --> name.dvi

   It would be very strange to see

     latex name.tex --> name.tex.dvi
     dvipdfm name.tex.dvi --> name.tex.dvi.pdf

   wouldn't it?

2) File names with more than one . are may not be portable to
   non-linux file systems - although the only ones I can think of
   are old and unlikely candidates for Axiom.

3) Files with unnecessarily long names are more awkward to use.

Ok I admit that reasons 2) and 3) are not very strong reasons...

Regards,
Bill Page.