Re: build system: devpdf/download regression

[Deri]

On Saturday, 16 July 2022 12:48:50 BST G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> [1] I think this is because it began life as, or Deri had hopes for it
>     to be, an installable tool.  Failing to add gropdf support for some
>     crazy font that will be used only by the document you're about to
>     write isn't necessarily a fatal problem, and since the whole
>     "download" file gets regenerated in one pass you don't necessarily
>     want to halt in the middle of writing it or you very well _may_
>     break rendering of known good documents.

Hi Branden,

I don't understand this. BuildFoundries is not used to import "crazy fonts" 
into devpdf, surely that is achieved with install-fonts.sh. The only purpose 
of BuildFoundries is to populate devpdf with the 35 fonts which are available 
to devps. The only reason I consider it can be an installable tool is because 
that is how I use it sometimes. If my system installs a new version of 
ghostscript, or the URW package is updated with different font names, then the 
entries in the download file are incorrect and groff stops working, but 
running BuildFoundries fixes it.

BuildFoundries itself is careful not to touch other entries in the download 
file, which may have been added manually or with install-fonts.sh. Which is 
why it is safe to use after initial installation of the groff package. Also, 
as a standalone tool we could ask ghostscript and urw-fonts packagers to 
include it in the post-installation script if the program exists on the 
system.

Cheers 

Deri