XVxvilka·Jun 28, 2021
You could also check the implementation in Rust - fully "oxidized" fork[1] of Tectonic.
[1] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/
In Problems with math rendering on the web (2020)crlf0710
tectonic
Rust2019–2021
crlf0710 / tectonic · Archived
tectonic
Experimental Oxidization of Tectonic the TeX/LaTeX engine.
3Distinct people
17Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
283GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Experimental Oxidization of Tectonic the TeX/LaTeX engine.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
- tectonic-typesetting/tectonic · linked in 4 of the same discussions
- immunant/c2rust · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by month17 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2019-09-13 18:57:01 UTC to 2021-06-28 02:07:34 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2019 | 2019-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Oct 2019 | 2019-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| Nov 2019 | 2019-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Dec 2019 | 2019-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Jan 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Feb 2020 | 2020-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2020 | 2020-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2020 | 2020-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| May 2020 | 2020-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2020 | 2020-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2020 | 2020-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2020 | 2020-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2020 | 2020-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2020 | 2020-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nov 2020 | 2020-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 2020 | 2020-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Jan 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2021 | 2021-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2021 | 2021-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Apr 2021 | 2021-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2021 | 2021-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Jun 2021 | 2021-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
17 sourcesThey have a forum but now discuss the switch to GitHub Discussions[1]. The issue about oxidizing everything is here[2]. If you want to help the project there is a number of issues[3] that can be done, in particular syncronization with the Tectonic mainline and XeTeX code update[4]
[1] https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/issues/766
[2] https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/issues/459
[3] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/issues
[4] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/issues/299
In Finl is not LaTeXI think completing the rewrite[1] of Tectonic[2] (Rust-powered XeTeX) has bigger potential and it's already working in many cases.
[1] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic
[2] https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/en-US/
In Finl is not LaTeXI hope the Tectonic[1] and it's oxidized (completely reimplemented in Rust) fork[2][3] will take off.
[1] https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/en-US/
[2]
https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/tree/oxidize
[3] https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/issues/459
In Learnlatex.org: A place to learn LaTeX onlineSo far the biggest missing feature is the export to PDF[1]. With projects like crowbook[2] and Tectonic (TeX engine) oxidation[3] it can be a perfect solution for creating modern documents without the legacy churn.
[1] https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook/issues/815
[2] https://github.com/lise-henry/crowbook/
[3] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/tree/oxidize
In mdBook – A utility to create modern online books from Markdown filesI hope the Tectonic[1] rewrite[2] in pure Rust will help to modernize the TeX and help it to evolve even faster (due to more modular structure).
[1] https://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/en-US/
[2] http://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic
In Classes, styles, conflicts: The biological realm of LaTeX [pdf] (2010)With the development of pure Rust[1] TeX engine (based on XeTeX) it will be possible to compile into WebAssembly too.
[1] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic
In Web-assembly powered WYSIWYG LaTeX Editor, supporting nearly all LaTeX packageThis would certainly be beneficial for the XeTeX "oxidation" efforts[1] for fonts parsing and shaping[2]. There is also a number of existing alternatives: font-kit[3], Skribo[4], RustType[5], ttf-parser[6]. Some of them are just parsers, some - font shapers. Still all of them are relevant to the subject.
[1] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic
[2] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/issues/117
[3] https://github.com/servo/font-kit
[4] https://github.com/linebender/skribo
[5] https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/rusttype/
[6] https://github.com/RazrFalcon/ttf-parser
In Allsorts: font parser and shaping engine implemented in RustOxidized Tectonic – LaTeX Engine in Pure Rust
2 points · Open discussionFYI, there's an effort at the moment to translate XeTeX and dvipdfmx into Rust. Started with c2rust, now we have a test suite checking regressions against the entire arXiv archive. Contributors welcome. https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic
In Ask HN: What is the most beautiful piece of code you've ever read?There is an automated tool - c2rust[1], automating a huge chunk of the translation from C to Rust. Moreover, it has a refactoring tool[2] that is scriptable in Lua. One of the good examples of such conversion (still not finished though), while still producing the same output is a rewrite[3][4] of XeTeX engine to Rust (as part of Tectonic[5] engine). It is able to parse arXiv articles dump and generate valid PDFs still.
There is some concept[6] of converting Java to Rust, but it is far from being as useful as c2rust tool. Would be nice to integrate with c2rust somehow, if someone wants to help.
[1] https://github.com/immunant/c2rust
[2] https://c2rust.com/manual/c2rust-refactor/index.html
[3] https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/issues/459
[4] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/tree/oxidize
[5] https://tectonic-typesetting.gi
Read the rest
Thanks. Is there any code to look at? (Couldn't easily find anything relevant on that repo…) I didn't mention it earlier, but I'm collecting a list of alternative TeX implementations[1] so if there's even (say) a dozen lines of WEB that have been converted to Rust, I'd be very eager to take a look and compare — it would be illuminating.
[1]: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/507846
Edit: To answer my own question. The relevant source (corresponding to the main part of xetex.web) is here: https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/blob/2580c55/engine/src...
I've posted a comparison of some example code first from the official xetex.web listing, and then from the “Rust” code here: https://gist.github.com/shreevatsa/627399d0150e66d211a264bc0...
You can draw your own conclusions from comparing the code samples, but to point out a few obvious
Read the rest
differences:
• What has the symbolic name “fi_or_else” in the WEB code has become the magic number “108” in the Rust code. (This is because the author of this project decided to have their Rust code start from the autogenerated C code which has already lost this symbolic information.)
• What is simply “if tracing_ifs>0” in the WEB code is 29 lines of Rust code, involving a magic offset into eqtb.
• The comments from the original are gone.
• Something like “cur_if:=subtype(p);” becomes “cur_if = (*mem.offset(p as isize)).b16.s0 as small_number;”.
I wonder how maintainable such Rust code will be. These problems are not insurmountable and the code can always be cleaned up later I guess… my point is simply that at the moment it is not idiomatic Rust code, for instance.
Efforts to ditch any C remnants are being made[1].
[1] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/
In Tectonic – TeX/LaTeX Engine in RustThere is some code that is still in C/C++ - remnants of XeTeX, but there is a project[1] to convert all legacy code in Rust.
[1] https://github.com/crlf0710/tectonic/
In Tectonic – TeX/LaTeX Engine in RustShowing the 15 most recent of 17 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.