[XeTeX] Loading fonts from a common server or http URL

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi Matthew,

	I was not talking about implementing a full http-client.
	
	As Phil has pointed out the texlive code base is not the newest
	nor very modern.

	The whole world benefit from a complete rewrite, but
	that is another story. Things have come a long way.
	There are always pros and cons to things. 

	Like I said, loading non installed packages on the fly is a 
	intelligent feature. Personally, I have no problem with a full
	texlive install, but that is because that is the way things are.

regards
	Keith.

Am 22.06.2011 um 15:27 schrieb mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca:

> On Wed, 22 Jun 2011, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
>> 	2) A program can open any/retrieve any file on a server
>> 	     using http. all it needs to do is speak http!
> 
> While we're at it, let's add a spelling checker, SQL database backend, and
> multilingual thesaurus to TeX.  Also a Space Invaders mini-game that you
> can play while you wait for your document to compile.  And let's make all
> these things work identically on all platforms, of course.
> 
> I don't think that network communication is reasonably part of what TeX is
> for, and although I recognize that some current extended-TeX projects
> already include it because it was part of languages or libraries they
> imported, and there may be some EXTREMELY UNUSUAL situations (such as
> compiling documents locally on a small tablet) where remote file loading
> is useful, I hope there isn't a large effort made to add this as a basic
> widely-used feature.  I already have enough trouble when people send me
> documents with files missing, without also adding in the compatibility and
> security nightmares of "Oh, my document won't compile, or won't compile
> the same way today as yesterday, because of issues on a remote server I
> don't control."  Remember that repeatability is a basic part of the
> mission of TeX, and repeatability simply no longer exists as soon as your
> document depends on remote files.
> 
> The existing \write18 feature allows documents to execute arbitrary
> programs, and there's free software available for all currently popular
> operating systems to automatically download files as needed.  (e.g.
> HTTP-client filesystems for FUSE, under Linux and Mac OS.)  So people who
> do need to make their documents access the network during compilation,
> already can.  I don't think it should be encouraged, though, nor that TeX
> should have an entire HTTP client built into it (which is NOT a trivial
> project if you want it to be cross-platform and actually work) just to
> make it easier for users to destroy the repeatability of TeX compilation.
> -- 
> Matthew Skala
> mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                 People before principles.
> http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/
> 
> 
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