[OS X TeX] Next generation TeX

[Joseph C. Slater]

On Sep 6, 2004, at 6:46 PM, ADITYA D TRIVEDI wrote:

>> On Sep 6, 2004, at 6:50 AM, Jérôme Laurens wrote:
>
>> <snip>

>
> 4) Seemless use of TeX related tools. I should have just one button 
> which says Typeset/Compile and TeX figures out what needs to be run 
> (for instance LaTeX, BibTeX, and LaTeX twice if necessary or just 
> LaTeX once) without additional input.
>

> 6) Faster TeX? TeX in a way acts like an interpreted language. If 
> there is a way to compile different files in a binary format to 
> improve speeds, that might help. This will help a great deal in large 
> projects. I know about the \include and \includeonly statements. 
> However a lot more in terms of speed is desired.

In some sense these are related. Because of the speed (or lack thereof) 
in typesetting documents (especially large projects), it is crucial to 
be able to do the 'partial' of only typesetting instead of waiting for 
everything else to be done. You can pretty easily figure out what is 
needed and write  macro that does all of them that are necessary right 
now. However, impatience will quickly lead you to 'like' doing only a 
single typeset, even when two are needed, when working on a significant 
length document.

I think what is likely needed is automated partial typesetting, where 
only a changed section is re-typeset and inserted into the place of the 
dvi/pdf where it belongs. However, this creates other issues of cross 
referencing, and that can move pages, etc.

Joe

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