[PLUG] Fw: note from Don Knuth (fwd)

[Rich Shepard]

  First changes to TeX since 1995. So minor even Knuth isn't upgrading.

:-)

Rich

---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 00:17:05 -0800
> To: bnb at ams.org
> Subject: note from Don Knuth
> 
> Dear Barbara,
> 
> I've drafted a "public" description of the recent changes to
> TeX-and-friends; it appears on
>   http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news03.html
> which is a page that nothing links to (as yet), but it will be my
> "recent news" page when the new year rolls around.
> 
> Can you pass this info to the TeX implementors, to see if they can
> suggest any improvements to the wording?
> 
> Basically I'm advising ordinary users not to be afraid to hold on
> to their current systems unless they find it convenient to upgrade.
> [Like, I myself will probably wait for several years before I switch!]
> 
> $MC+HNY$! -- Don
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 15:00:14 -0800
> To: bnb at ams.org
> Subject: from Don Knuth [TeX 2002 is ready for beta-test!]
> 
> Dear Barbara,
> 
> Once again a super-huge THANK YOU for collecting and editing that
> big package of TeX/MF feedback. I've gone through it all, and
> I've written both comments and reward-checks; these you will receive
> early in January (but not before then, because Stanford is
> closed for the holidays).
> 
> Meanwhile, if you yourself are not "closed" during this festive
> time, you can spread the word to everybody who needs to know that
> NEW VERSIONS OF TeX AND FRIENDS ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR BETA-TESTING!
> 
> All my tests have been passed, but of course I don't want to inflict
> new sources on the world until the real TeX gurus have had a chance
> to give their seal of approval.
> 
> The new sources are available on
>   http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/tex02-beta.tgz
> but I haven't told anybody else about this. [In other words, if
> you don't tell anybody, it will remain a secret.]
> 
> Once they are vetted, I'll put them on labrea.stanford.edu in
> place of the sources presently there. My understanding is that
> labrea is always monitored by CTAN, hence I won't have to do
> anything else when I do finally "release" them ... but I will also
> put a short notice about their existence on my "news" page when
> that time comes.
> 
> The new versions are
>      TeX 3.141592
>        (four bugs fixed: two re leaders, two re alignments)
>      METAFONT 2.71828
>        (one bug fixed, re autorounding of huge paths)
>      TANGLE 4.5
>        (a trivial change re numeric comments, possibly unnecessary)
>      VFtoVP 1.3
>        (small correction to the out-of-range error correction)
>      PLAIN.TEX, HYPHEN.TEX, PLAIN.MF
>        (only the uncopyright notice has changed)
>      CMBASE.MF, ACCENT.MF CSC.MF
>        (improvements in robustness, but nothing major;
>           only the numeral 7 is affected slightly, in cmbx5 thru cmbx8)
>      ERRATA.TEX, TEX82.BUG, MF84.BUG, CM85.BUG, ERRORLOG.TEX, ERRATA.TEN
>        (details of the recent changes)
> 
> Actually tex02-beta.tgz includes a file DIFFS02 that lists all the
> differences between what I've got now and what I had in 1998.
> People who look closely at that file will notice a dozen or so
> changes to my "local" files, reflecting my aborted attempt to convert
> to GNU Pascal; those should be ignored. I tried to install GPC in 2000,
> but the attempt was such a miserable failure that I don't have courage
> to try again. David Fuchs has a good Pascal compiler and he helped me
> with the critical ports. Otherwise I am muddling through with web2c
> approximations to the definitive Pascal sources.
> 
> Of course this means that etex, pdftex, pdfetex, etc, all need to
> be upgraded; then the packages that contain them can follow.
> The job won't be hard if the authors still remember how to do it ---
> however, I realize that TeX hasn't changed since 1995, so people
> might well have forgotten! Anyway the changes are fairly
> basic and not difficult to fathom.
> 
> I recommend that you print the nine-page output of "errata.tex"
> in TUGboat when these new versions are announced publically. Those
> pages list all changes to Volume A--E since the first printings of
> the millenium edition (now in its second printing).
> 
> Can you communicate the following comments please to the web2c folks?
> [All remarks relate to teTeX-1.07 which I am currently using]
>   1) When I say "dvitype --help", the message incorrectly has ` for '
>      in the examples for page-start.
>   2) In triptrap/trip.diffs, one of the "admissible differences"
>      is the statment about "1 hyphenation exception" in trip.log,
>      when my Pascal programs always say "2 hyphenation exceptions".
>      Why does this discrepancy occur, and why is it acceptable?
>   3) I also find the 8-bit character E-acute instead of ^^c8,
>      and y-umlaut instead of ^^ff, in trip.log/mftrap.log when I say
>      "make trip" and "make trap". This is probably OK, although it
>      means that a very small part of tex and mf is not being
>      exercised; but then such differences should probably appear
>      in the files trip.diffs and mftrap.diffs.
> 
> Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! I'll be back in action again in 2007.
> 
> Yours truly, Don
> 
----- End forwarded message -----