[OS X TeX] Finally we are grown up

[Claus Gerhardt]

I am not offering an installer but install instructions combined with  
some Applescripts (now applications), that should allow the average  
user to install TeXLive (TUG) without any troubles.

It is really interesting that the critiques of my approach come from  
people who obviously never tried to follow my instructions.

Claus


On Nov 20, 2006, at 15:21, Fernando Pereira wrote:

>
> On Nov 20, 2006, at 3:13 AM, Louis Talman wrote:
>
>> I think that it's very interesting that Claus didn't get it right  
>> on the first try.  (Nor is this a criticism of Claus; we all make  
>> mistakes like the ones he made.)
>
> It is however evidence for the value of a well-designed installer  
> system like i-Installer (thanks again, Gerben!). Software  
> installation is hard, because it has to accommodate the almost  
> infinite variability of local setups. A good installer can check  
> for the invariants it expects before doing anything irreversible. A  
> set of natural language instructions does that rarely, if ever.  
> What makes natural language easier and more concise for people --  
> vagueness, reliance on a shared background -- is exactly what makes  
> it inappropriate as a medium for communicating configuration  
> instructions.
>
> -- F
>
>
>

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