Re: pytex: a tex engine written in python

Hi Jonathan,

I tried out Tectonic. In my test run, it performed roughly 30% faster 
than lualatex. So I considered to use it in my mediawiki2latex project. 
My mediawiki2latex project is distributed as a Debian package. So I will 
need a Debian package of Tectonic too if I want to use it. Unfortunately 
I could not find any such Debian package. I wanted to ask if there are 
any compelling reasons against making Debian package of Tectonic and 
whom I could possible contact to ask for that.

Yours Dirk

On 7/15/26 19:45, Jonathan Fine wrote:
> Hi Junling
>
> I've spent a few minutes looking at your pytex repository on github. 
> I'm impressed by the amount of work you've done, and not surprised 
> that at present your Python implementation runs slow.
>
> In addition to your implementation in Python, there are roughly 
> similar implementations in Java and Rust. The Java implementation is 
> not in use, but is of historical interest. It aimed for 100% 
> compatibility. It ran too slow for use in production. The Rust 
> implementation has users and is being actively developed.
>
> Java: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Typesetting_System
> Rust: https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/en-US/
>
> Tectonic is a Rust implementation (with changes) of XeTeX. Even if 
> XeTeX is changing only slowly, the derived work Tectonic is actively 
> developed, see
> https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/blob/release/CHANGELOG.md
>
> Finally, https://tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb27-0/fine.pdf gives my 
> views (from 2005) on integrating Python with TeX. It's been a long 
> time since I've read that article.
>
> I wish you well with your TeX and Python projects.
>
> with kind regards
>
> Jonathan