Re: The Problems of TeX

On 2008-02-23, Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jim Diamond <Jim.Diamond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

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.

<shrug> But you do fall into the category of `Unix expert', at a guess?

Humility prevents me from responding. :-)
And please, the word is "wizard". :-)

I use `Unix expert' rather than following your dialect.
It's not *my* dialect. See http://www.von-bassewitz.de/uz/unixhier.html
(but in reality, according to that I would fall more into "guru" than
"wizard" category :-)

But seriously, I didn't think my Unix expertise (or lack thereof)
really came into the picture here,
I think it does, because you have learnt how to use the documentation.
I have not.
Why are you continuing to associate "Unix documentation" with "TeX
documentation"? While I avoid windoze like the plague on humanity
that it is, presumably the documentation for TeX systems that run on
windoze has little resemblance to things like Unix man pages.


although I suppose someone who
knows almost nothing about Unix/Linux (as opposed to someone who has
reached "basic user" status) could have had to think a bit to install
it.
The point about `basic user' status with a free Unix is that you need to
learn a lot to get there.
As opposed to a non-free Unix???

That means you've got to get the hang of the documentation. Those
who cannot do so never reach that level and don't use Linux, do
they?
Historically probably true. I have been led to believe that a lot of
neophytes have succeeded in installing and then productively using
Ubuntu.

Seriously, if you have a Linux system at hand, why not give it a
try and let me know?
I don't have Linux to hand. Two Macs by way of modern computers, and
we're not installing Linux on either. Really. Maybe one day, if other
computers become available, I might try a free Unix. But it wouldn't be
Linux. FreeBSB or NetBSD looked more up my street last time I peeked.
I really don't like the Linux approach at all.
I have no idea what you are talking about when you say "Linux
approach", since you don't say "approach to what", but I think
inquiring would remove the conversation even further from the topic at
hand.



And okay, dvi previewers need to know that sort of thing too but I
don't think I've got one with MacTeX.
There's no DVI previewer? Really? Huh.

If there's anything else regarding paper size settings in a TeX system,
I've no idea at all what it is. I've used OzTeX which had paper size
settings for the dvi viewer and dvips. Two different settings - that
made sense. Before that, I used emTeX and TeX on Unix. Same sort of
thing with them (not that I ever looked after TeX on Unix in those
days). What is going on with TeXLive's paper size setting, I have yet
to find out.
Well, as I recall, on Linux it tells dvips and xdvi what the "paper
size" is.


I could not do the same with MacTeX
Sorry to hear that. I find the process of installing software on a
Mac very mysterious, but that is possibly because I've only tried to
do it once.
The usual Mac installation procedure involves dragging an application
icon from one place to another. I.e., the user thinks it's a process of
`There's the file, stick it where you want, job done'.

How is that mysterious?
I'll assume you are being facetious.


Being a plain tex user, I don't need
to add/update latex packages, and the one time I added fonts they came
with explicit directions on exactly what to do. To me, the process of
updating things in one's tex distribution seems gratuitously complex,
but I say that from my position of "tex user", not "tex system/tool
implementer" or "tex package implementer".
Properly speaking, it should be perfectly possible to just put the
required files on the appropriate search paths. A `system wide
additions' texmf tree and a `this user additions' texmf tree should be
supplied for local additions in all TeX systems so all you have to do is
just bung the files where they're needed in a very straightforward
fashion.
Texlive has a "this user additions" tree in the user's home directory
and a texmf-local tree for "system wide additions". Is that what you
are looking for?



Look, it's perfectly obvious that Unix documentation is written on the
basis of `If you don't understand this stuff, you shouldn't be fiddling
with it'. It's also obvious that Unix documentation is mostly written
by heavy, heavy hackers who have no idea how to communicate with normal
human beings, no idea what learning requirements normal human beings
have, no idea how to assess the quality of their documentation, and
generally no interest at all in making their documentation *useful*.

Possibly you are familiar with research results which indicate that
different people like different types of reading material? Some
people prefer documentation or descriptions that go on in great detail
with many examples, and other people like documentation that is terse.
I don't think you should categorize one group as "normal".
<puzzled> What are you on about?
What part of that didn't you understand?

Look, I'm trying to distinguish `useful from the point of view of a
heavy hacker' and `useful from the point of view of someone else' -
calling `all that set normal human beings'.

And perhaps you are aware that regardless of what research says about
what people reading, documentation is useless unless it teaches people
what they need to know. And no-one enjoys reading documentation that
does not perform the function they require from it.
Yes, so?

Typical Unix documentation is useful to people who are looking for
tersely-written material.
You are distorting and misrepresenting the matter as if it were purely
down to aesthetics and battle between a desire to keep things short and
sweet and a desire to waffle.
No I'm not.
It is not: it's all about function, and the distinction between
`concise' and `concise' rather than `terse' and `verbose'. No, I've
not gone mad - read on.

Making the terse/verbose distinction is wrong. Unix documentation
is as minimalist as it can get by intent. That is bad for most
people. Most people need more filling in of gaps. But
documentation should always be `concise' - meaning `short but
complete'. But what's complete? From a Unix hacker's point of
view, `standard man pages'. From the point of view of a normal
human being, `complete' means rather more is needed.
OK, so you agree that one person's "concise" documentation is another
person's "unconcise by being too verbose" documentation. Or,
similarly, yet another person's "unconcise by leaving out too much
assumed knowledge" documentation.

The solution is to write suitably concise documentation for a particular
audience - but that human way of looking at things doesn't seem to exist
in Unixland, does it?
Are you suggesting that people who find "standard Unix documentation"
(whatever that is) at the appropriate level of conciseness are not
human?

Or are you suggesting that "standard Unix documentation" should be
written for beginners, rather than people who are using Unix on a
day-to-day basis?


Typical Unix documentation is not useful for anyone who is not already a
stone cold Unix expert.
No, it is also useful for people who fall into the "Unix user"
category. But it is not very useful for people who fall into the
"know nothing about Unix" category. That doesn't mean the
documentation is bad, merely that the documentation is not all things
to all people.

Do you know of any documentation for any reasonably complex system
that both experts and novices using that system would find to be
"concise"?

It is useful for people who are looking for documentation that is
accessible only to stone cold experts like themselves, and excludes
all normal people who do not have the right expert background.
No, that is not true. You may find it inaccessible, but I have seen
many Unix beginners figure things out with little outside help and get
themselves up to a reasonable degree of, if not expert-ness, at least
user-ness.

It's like old fashioned class discrimination - `You're not one of
us, go away!'. It's just a normal human behaviour pattern that you
can observe almost anywhere you have human groupings, and even more
commonly where you have a group of people that possesses privileges.
Access to information and power to control are privileges. Have a
think about it.
You are being overly dramatic. There is a difference between not
making the effort to produce documentation suitable for novices and
actively discriminating against them.


You seem to be ignoring the human end of things - docs need to be
/useful/.
You seem to be missing the point that just because *you* don't find
the documentation useful does not imply that it is not useful to others.


I would not be surprised that if you take any group of people (e.g.,
Unix hackers) they might tend toward similarity in some personality
traits. And perhaps the preference for terse documentation is such a
trait common to Unix hackers.
It's not like that at all. Unix hackers are Unix hackers because they
can work with the available documentation.
So you are saying they have a trait in common.
Those of us who find it hard to learn how to use Unix are in the
position we are in because we cannot work with the available
documentation.
So you are saying you and some others have a trait in common. So how
is it that you say "It's not like that at all."?

It has nothing to do with personal likes and dislikes, as you
falsely imply.
Sorry, are you taking on divine status here, or can you prove that
statement?


But I don't think that writing for
people with similar learning styles is "no interest at all in making
their documentation *useful*.". I'd say it is "no interest in making
their documentation useful for people who like verbosity".
I'm not talking about people who like verbose documentation. Verbose
and terse documentation are both bad styles. All documentation should
be concise - none of it should be either terse or verbose.
Concise for who? Novices or experts?

What I'm arguing for is concise documentation.
Documentation can not be "concise" for all readers. Are you arguing
that every system should have many, many sets of documents, each set
tailored towards a small group of people with approximately equal
background in the material at hand?


The problem is that Unix hackers don't write for normal human
beings:
Are you saying all Unix hackers are abnormal?


I've got verbose documentation for other things, and I hate it with a
passion. Chapter after chaper of waffle, low information density,
incredibly hard to find out what you want, and so on.
So maybe someone who knows far less than you do about that subject
needs all that extra material.

Clearly quite a lot of Unix documentation is written with great care
and attention to detail - so the authors do care about *something*,
but it's not `making the documentation useful for others', whatever
they're playing at.
I really don't think that is the case.

<shrug> And I really do, based on my observations.
So if I find such documentation useful, that doesn't count as far as
you are concerned?


<puzzled> But `terse and not beginner friendly' is equivalent to
`designed to exclude'.
No it isn't. It is "not designed to include everyone", which is
considerably different.
`Designed to exclude some people' is what you claim it is -
Don't you think that if you have to incorrectly twist my words to
support your argument that maybe your argument has some holes?

which is equivalent to `designed to exclude people' which is what I
claim it is.

But you've madly claimed otherwise. I'm not sure what to do about that
- am I really trying to have a debate with a lunatic?
I was trying to have a civil discussion, but you seem to be getting
personal, for reasons I could only speculate about.

If not, perhaps I am not writing well, but perhaps my writing
is poorly matched to your reading/learning style.
You can of course make as many insulting personal insinuations as
you like. Each one that I read lowers my opinion of you.
So my writing style not matching your reading style is a personal
insinuation against you?


Admittedly, what's `concise' from the point of view of different people
is different,
I'm glad you see that.
so I'm not trying to suggest that `one style fits all'.
So then "typical Unix documentation" is maybe after all useful for
some people, but unfortunately not for you.


I've looked at the AUCTeX docs. They're one reason I've never tried
to use Emacs seriously in recent years.
You can happily edit TeX files with emacs without auctex, I do it
almost every day.
<sigh> But what on *EARTH* would cause me to use a text editor for
editing text files that didn't have some sort of TeX mode?
Who said it didn't have a TeX mode? There is a tex-mode for emacs
aside from auctex. Here are the first few lines from tex-mode.el:

;;; tex-mode.el --- TeX, LaTeX, and SliTeX mode commands -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

;; Copyright (C) 1985, 1986, 1989, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999,
;; 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

;; Maintainer: FSF
;; Keywords: tex

;; Contributions over the years by William F. Schelter, *** King,
;; Stephen Gildea, Michael Prange, Jacob Gore, and Edward M. Reingold.

;; This file is part of GNU Emacs.

You can see it has been around for a long time.


The only reason is `lack of anything else' and I've got text editors
that are a lot more convenient to use than Emacs. If I were to use
Emacs for TeXing, I wouldn't dream of not using a TeX-aware mode of some
sort.
And there is a non-auctex tex mode there for you to use.


When I lost access to a live-in Unix sysadmin (long time ago, when a
student), that was `it' for me and Emacs, really. Its documentation
makes it very hard for someone to learn to use who doesn't have a
human expert to hand.
I agree. But since you can use emacs on a wide variety of platforms,
I don't think you should tie "unix" and "emacs" too closely together.
<pained> What are you on about?
Re-read your own words. You said you parted ways with emacs when your
unix expert went away. Did you really want to say that you parted
ways with emacs when your emacs expert went away?

Tell you what, why not re-read what I wrote and try to understand it
this time?
Might I politely suggest you take your own advice?


A lot of unix sysadmins belong to the church of vi, and see emacs as
something very unholy.
Indeed so, as I knew long before said Unix sysadmin and me parted
company when we moved out of that particular student house.
Your point being?
That being a unix expert and an emacs expert are two separate,
unrelated things, whereas you seem to be equating the two.

Cheers.
Jim
.

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