Re: The Problems of TeX

On 2008-02-20, Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The choice of distribution is not remotely free but depends on how much
the user already knows about TeX and friends. Some TeX systems need
very expert care for installation, others do not.

Even MacTeX that I got needed a *LOT* of work on my part before I could
get it working usefully. Documentation is poor, help is hard to come
by.

I don't see that many people are in a position to install a TeX
installation from scratch these days in any case - every one that I've
looked at has needed a stone-cold TeX+computer expert to set up.

I used to be a tetex user, until TE stopped maintaining it. I found
it straightforward to install texlive 2007 on a Linux system. It was
certainly more effort than installing the tetex packages for my
distribution of choice (Slackware), but it wasn't too hard. Note that
I had never done any non-trivial configuration of TeX distributions
before, so I didn't fall into the "tex installation/configuration
wizard" category. And I still don't.

So: I would say that the selection and installation of the TeX system
depends on having a TeX expert who's also an expert in the host computer
system to hand. The normal user cannot exercise a choice in this area.
Maybe that is the case in the MacOS world, I dunno. But honestly I
don't think it is for Linux.

<snip>

Most people /can't/ learn to use Emacs, AUCTeX, and so on -
I've tried to learn how to use Emacs+AUCTeX from the supplied
documentation, and I have failed. Emacs documentation is, on its own,
impossible for a normal person to get anywhere with as far as I can
tell. This is the big problem with a lot of Unix-side software:
documentation that is designed to exclude.
I think that is harsh to the point of inaccuracy. I would say that a
lot of Unix docs are designed to be terse and not beginner-friendly.
(And yes, I agree that is a problem.) But I seriously doubt that many
(or any) documentation writers actually design their docs to exclude
people. I believe they just don't make the effort to make the
documentation more inclusive.

(Yeah, I've looked at the AUCTeX docs, and I must admit I didn't see a
whole lot there for plain TeX users, notwithstanding the advertising
that says it is useful for plain TeX. Intentional exclusion for plain
TeX users? I doubt it, just not a major interest for people
contributing to AUCTeX. Or maybe I didn't spend enough time looking.)

Cheers.
Jim
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Problems of TeX
    ... I would say that the selection and installation of the TeX ... Who defines `purpose'? ... Beginners can become experts ...
    (comp.text.tex)
  • Re: Gill Sans als Schrift installieren
    ... Allerdings werden die unter Windows nicht ... wie man einen Font installiert. ... von Tex ist. ... kommst Du aus meiner Sicht am "Font Installation Guide" nicht vorbei. ...
    (de.comp.text.tex)
  • Re: Commercial TeX Distro for Mac OS X.
    ... there but porting to a Mac doesn't look like a beginner's task. ... there commercial distributions of TeX that are easy to install and run ... ranging from LyX to TeXShop to various flavours of Emacs. ... This gives you a complete TeX/LaTeX installation and installing doesn't get much easier. ...
    (comp.text.tex)
  • Re: So what is the point of darwinports then?
    ... And that includes MacTeX - which provides a pukka Mac ... I had to edit *all* the bloody quotes and apostrophes, ... No such concept in TeX. ... TeX installation back then. ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • cygwin latex problem: latex.exe points to pdfetex.exe and not to tex.exe , why?
    ... which includes complete tex installation. ... now, when I run the command latex, it invokes pdfetex instead: ... Kpathsea is copyright 1997-2004 Free Software Foundation, ...
    (comp.text.tex)