Message-ID:  <970620155703.ce5a@vms.rhbnc.ac.uk>
Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Date:         Fri, 20 Jun 1997 15:57:03 +0100
From: "Philip Taylor (RHBNC)" <CHAA006@VMS.RHBNC.AC.UK>
Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
              <LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE>
Subject:      Re: discussing relation of LaTeX to TeX successors
Status: R

>> well, if you take the TeX Live CD, there are 213 LaTeX packages with
>> at least 1 file, maybe several. Say 500 files; if
>> you do \usepackage{foo}, at a minimum you have to scan the tree
>> containing those 500 files to locate foo.sty. Is that good or bad?

Let's leave this to one side for the moment, because the next case
is easier to analyse"

>> Then again my CD has over 5000 tfm files. If I do
>>  \font\foo=foo.tfm
>> you are going to have to look at all of them, arent you? hard to see
>> how to cut that down rationally.

If there are only TFM files in the tree, then VMS will be as efficient
as any other system in locating a particular file; if the tree has
other files in it, then unacceptable delays may occur.  It was really
this area for which I was seeking clarification: is TDS defined in
such a way that there is a TFM tree, a TEX/LaTeX tree, and so on,
or are the trees conflated in some way?

>> Whether the tree has irrelevant files depends, of course, on how well
>> you specify the subtree to look at.

It depends even more on what the TDS specifies!