[OS X TeX] TeX i-Package updated, Easy Mac font support for PDFTeX

Peter Dyballa Peter_Dyballa at Web.DE
Wed Dec 7 15:18:09 CET 2005


Am 07.12.2005 um 14:07 schrieb Gerben Wierda:

> And btw, this behaviour is unacceptable from a usage point of view. The
> problem is that you cannot know if it is intentional that a user has or
> does not have some kind of configuration.

Right! Therefore I mentioned that a personal MAP file should exist, 
because without at least one personal MAP file it wouldn't make much 
sense to run updmap (except for a general update of the personal 
installation).

> Just overriding that with your own idea (you *should* have 
> gtamacfonts, etc.) is worse (imperialistic) than having a clean 
> system-wide setting in the background that everything
> reverts back to when the personal config is removed.
>

Yes, you're right! Even if the TeX sys admin would have chosen to add 
gtamacfonts.map, it's possible that some user(s) would like to live 
without that. Nevertheless it would make sense  to run an updmap for 
this system's users with an own set of updmap directories, because it 
would update the personal choices and allow them to use teTeX's updates 
(because updmap creates from a bunch of files, of which every one can 
change, a final one, a sum of all lines; if this summation would happen 
every time 'on the fly' when actually needing to look up possible 
mappings, it would be easier). Otherwise the system administrator would 
need to tell hundreds of users about the TeX update so that those who 
need it can update their own setup.

A clean system-wide setting can only exist for a standard or ideal 
user. Those who are trying to develop something different will need to 
integrate their developer mess into the usual teTeX mess. Thomas Esser 
must have thought of this when he introduced the dual set of 
configurational scripts. And you need to follow now that path when you 
want to give more than some partial support ...


(I still think that Apple's decision to go intel is a good one, 
allowing to present the OS and its users virtual processors and virtual 
servers running on them, for example a TeX server, similiar to a MACH 
kernel, that offers services to users, and which therefore will be 
unique for even hundred of users and which will be the single instance 
to be updated -- or to fail completely!)

--
Greetings

   Pete

Ce qui été compris n'existe plus.    (Paul Eluard)

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