TeX was designed to be archival

-----Original Message-----
From: David Allsopp [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 20 August 2013 16:19
To: A place for MiKTeX users to discuss MiKTeX related questions.
Subject: Re: [MiKTeX] Package Documentation Language

Jonathan Fine wrote:
> >But I got this
> >
> >You are attempting to make a LaTex format from a source file That is
> >more than five yers old.
>
> I've come across this.  TeX was designed to be archival.

Out of curiosity, what gave you this idea? TeX may be feature-frozen, but the brittle font subsystem makes it a generally inappropriate choice for archiving - it's quite difficult to archive the environment in which a TeX file is run.

____________________________________________


I got this idea from Don Knuth's remarks at the 'coming out' party for TeX in May 1986.  There he wrote that 'The first goal was quality', and that 'The second major design goal was to be archival'.

You can read this article in Don's Digital Typography.  The quotes come from page 559.   I use these and similar quotes in www.ntg.nl/EuroTeX2009/slides/jfine-slides-mainstream.pdf


Jonathan
-- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introducing Performance Central, a new site from SourceForge and 
AppDynamics. Performance Central is your source for news, insights, 
analysis and resources for efficient Application Performance Management. 
Visit us today!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=48897511&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk