Re: build system: devpdf/download regression

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Deri,

At 2022-07-16T16:21:15+0100, Deri wrote:
> 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.
> 
> I don't understand this. BuildFoundries is not used to import "crazy
> fonts" into devpdf, surely that is achieved with install-fonts.sh.

Well, since we don't install BuildFoundries and don't even have
install-font.sh in our source tree, a user could argue that we leave
them to their own devices when it comes to font installation.

> 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.

Okay.  But you're a very knowledgeable groff and gropdf user.

> 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.

I agree that this is a desirable future direction for BuildFoundries to
take.

Regards,
Branden

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