Subject: bug#36357: Wrong Ghostscript program name on MS Win

From: Sebastian Urban <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 12:07:54 +0200

>> I tend not to agree here as I've seen people who only have
 >> TeXlive/MikTeX installed on Windows which cater for a minimal
 >> Ghostscript.  Those people could benefit from the code above.
 >
 > I think that's a valid argument.  So that's what I would go for.

I would say that this is not very "default" (default = normal
Ghostscript installation) setup, in which case user should set up
desired setting manually.  But it's your call, I won't object here.

About the code:

1. There is:
+   ;; Standard Ghostscript
+   (executable-find "gs")
...
+   ;; Standard Ghostscript as fallback
+   "gs")

What for is first "Standard Ghostscript"?  There is no "gs" in
Windows, and fallback will work for Unix.

2. Version is set to 28.1, so... we are skipping 27.1?  It's not big
deal for me, but some say: don't put off until tomorrow (28.1) what
you can do today (27.1).

 > We should ask ourselves if the order is ok, i.e., if on systems
 > where multiple gs installs are available, the "best" one gets
 > selected.  So is it correct to prefer gswin64c over gswin32c and
 > that over rungs and mgs?

I think it's OK, because "gswin32/64c" is, as I mentioned earlier -
the default way of setting up GS, and it should have higher priority
as default, as well as 64bits should be higher than 32bits version,
because... well, everything moves towards 64bits, so it is more
up-to-date order.  As for "rungs/mgs" - what is more common "TeX
Live/MikTeX"?

 > Another question: You both used executable-find with exe file
 > extension.  Was that intended?  I mean, it makes sure we don't
 > falsely set some "gs.bat" or "gs.cmd" which might have nothing to do
 > with GhostScript.  Is that a real danger?

"Falsely setting" file with the same name but different extension
crossed my mind.  So, yes we should include extension just to be sure,
that function will find exactly what we are looking for.

 > If so, we need the OS distinction again.

What for?

S. U.