Re: texi2dvi: A more pleasant way to compile

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello,

On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 09:20:51AM +0200, Akim Demaille wrote:
> The point is also to stop populating the directory with tmp files.
> That's a real annoyance:
> - visual pollution of the directories

Unfortunatelly, the new dir is the root of problems with Automake.
As I said before, if people upgrade texinfo, and then "make distcheck"
will fail, in all their projects, they will scream.  (They might even
say something impolite to Karl!)

>  > But since the compilation happens in another dir, you still have most
>  > of the advantages.
> 
> Sorry, but I don't follow.

In your original patch, you presented the following benefits:
         - the output is updated when each tex compilation is completed:
         - to allow interactive viewing
         - to preserve the previous output is the compilation fails
         - if the compilation fails, the previous state is preserved.

which would also be present if the "xref" files were copied from/to current
dir.
But we'd lose these:
         - a fix set of files to clean in this end (this directory)
         - a perfect independence between DVI and PDF compilations.

You said:
> If that's what it takes to have the newer scheme then, I'll do that :(

Actually, if some part of your work can be made the default immediately,
it should be accepted first.
The rest, which would break backward compatibility with Automake-1.9 will
have to be hidden under --build, at least for now.

>  > In theory yes, but I think that in the vast majority of cases two runs
>  > suffice.
> 
> That's not my experience, that precisely prompted for the changes I
> implemented.

I'd be glad to see this in action.  Perhaps it could be improved by running
the tools in another order.

If you could put a real-life example somewhere on the web, I'd like to look
at it.  (But I won't get to it until the end of June.)

Have a nice day,
        Stepan