[OS X TeX] R, paradigm to bring into the LaTeX world?

[Claus Gerhardt]

I think that tex/latex will remain the principal software for writing  
and publishing scientific papers and books, though I have to admit  
that I should restrict my judgement to publishing in mathematics and  
physics where I have experience and knowledge. Look at the preprint  
arXiv which requires all papers to be submitted as tex or latex  
files. I also don't know any publishing house for these areas which  
doesn't require latex files from its authors, nor do I know   
mathematicians, except rather old ones, who don't use tex or latex or  
at least have a secretary using it.

The present organization of latex packages might seem to be chaotic  
but I never had a problem with it in the past nor do I expect to have  
one in the future. As usual there are bad, good and excellent  
packages for a particular purpose, but we all know which one to pick  
and be it by asking this list.

Looking up the documentation of a package has been discussed ad  
nauseam in recent weeks and before, and for the benefit of the  
proverbial newbies, who, as I understand, have to be spoon-fed by all  
means, I recommend to incorporate some instructions either in  
TeXShop's documentation or on the Mac-TeX page.

Claus


On Oct 23, 2006, at 15:58, Gerben Wierda wrote:

> What should happen IMO is that something large like the TeX Live  
> group effort  would integrate such improved functionality. This  
> would amongst other things require tighter control of TeX packages,  
> something that will be very difficult to achive. TeX packages are a  
> chaos, license-, organization-, documentation-, installation- and  
> other-wise. It will be impossible unless a dedicated effort is  
> being made to shoehorn everything back into one paradigm. MiKTeX  
> does this, but it requires a separate set up distribution that is  
> manually maintained. teTeX was the same.
>
> Basically, I think that in the long run TeX will remain a niche  
> thing with changes of going extinct (e.g. if Microsoft or  
> OpenOffice create a "good enough" setup for Math and large  
> projects) unless this serious effort is made. That, I am afraid,  
> will require serious financial sponsorship as it will  take many  
> people a lot of time to accomplish this.
>
> G

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