On Mon, 13 Feb 2006, Hans Hagen wrote:
Ian Hutchinson wrote:
On Sun, 12 Feb 2006, Taco Hoekwater wrote: I don't know where you get the idea that dvi does not know anything about page dimensions. It is clearly quite erroneous. TeX itself does specify its offsets, and dvips etc specify their pages sizes in accordance with settings that need to be compatible with the extent of the text (i.e. \hsize, \vsize).
your claim does not stand; as taco says, *dvi* does not know about page dimensions, unless you've uncovered a new dvi opcode and page dimension related pure tex primitive
it's dvips that deals with the page dimenions (and it understands specials that specify them, but specials are, well, specials, not part of the tex standard)
I think you are just nit picking. Without dvi2something, the TeX system is incomplete. You say only the 'something' needs to know paper size. I say, of course, but \hsize has to be chosen with some knowledge of papersize, so tex and something have to be coordinated even when dvi is in use.
the bug you mention is therefore more comparable to a (temporary) bug in dvips
If it were just papersize, I would agree. When it is offsets as well, which TeX knows about, then I would argue it is somewhat more fundamental. But in any case, since pdftex is in a sense responsible for the work of the combination tex+dvips, it's comparable to a bug in pdftex.
for the average tex user compatibility mostly means that one can still (maybe with small modifications) process old documents; magnification was never meant as a feature to be used for final prints, so if something fails in that area it does not break the compatibility story
I totally disagree. What magnification is "meant for" is not just what one person or group of persons thinks. I believe this misunderstanding of the role in plain of \magnification is one reason why this bug has received such short shrift until now. Compatibility is compatibility.
However, I will continue to say loudly, that until a patch like this is applied, the latest version of pdftex has broken plain tex files for no good reason. That is a bad thing, and since the fix is so easy, it should be fixed ASAP.
well, if it's broken it will be repaired,
Excellent!
what puzzles me is that nobody noticed this dureing the 'texlive code freeze', it looks like there are no plain tex users testing pdftex at that stage
People did notice it, as you'll see if you go back through the mail archives (although admittedly not that many people). The problem was not properly diagnosed at the time (by my interpretation of the exchanges) and the complaints were treated with considerable disdain, which probably discouraged the pursuit of the problem. Not everyone is thick-skinned enough to overcome the aggressive tone of the pdftex croud. Regards, Ian Hutchinson.