Please no: [OS X TeX] set environment variables for applications

Bruno Voisin bvoisin at mac.com
Mon May 24 16:22:06 CEST 2004


Le 24 mai 04, à 15:15, Gerben Wierda a écrit :

>> To sum it up, create a file named ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist (if it
>> does not yet exist) that looks like
>
> Applications shoul dmanage their own environment. Changing it for all
> applications because an application does not support its own set of
> preferences is a remedy which may be more dangerous than the cause.
>
> [...]
>
> So, this is a trick that works, but in the long run we are going to 
> pay a
> price which makes it not work anymore.

I'm not sure this is the same, but it reminds me of extensions in Mac 
OS 7 to 9. As extensions were introduced in OS 7, applications started 
to install their own extensions in System Folder/Extensions, and, as 
more applications were doing this, the OS became gradually unstable and 
prone to crashes or unexpected behaviours, because of conflicting 
extensions. An Extension Manager control panel was developed by a 
hacker just to deal with this mess, and Apple finally made Extension 
Manager a part of the OS. Still, as more applications were present on a 
single disk, things were becoming harder and more time-consuming to 
manage.

So, yes, please nobody make that kind of user nightmare surface back on 
OS X!

Bruno Voisin
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