[OS X TeX] suggestion

epicurus at forallx.net epicurus at forallx.net
Mon Nov 9 22:32:39 CET 2009


There've been some complaints about the lag of TL2009 showing up on
servers.  I certainly don't mind waiting.  But I will say it was
supremely irritating that the following three things were
simultaneously true:

(1) The MacTeX page tug.org/mactex had a link that said it was TL2009
(complete with a date and size), and gave no indication that TL2008
might get downloaded instead.  The "note" seems only to reflect that
either TL2009 would be downloaded or, if a mirror wasn't up to date,
nothing at all would be downloaded. 

(2) The result of clicking on that link was the download of a file
that was in fact TL2008.

(3) The filename, both once downloaded and as appeared at the end of
the URL in Safari's status bar, gave zero indication that it was for
TL2008.  In fact, it gives no indication of year at all.

These three together are seriously misleading.  I had no way of
knowing that TL2008 was coming until it was already downloaded and
unzipped.  Had either (1) or (3) been absent, I wouldn't have wasted
all that time downloading.  When using Safari for downloading, we
don't see what symbolic links are pointing to what.

Please, in the future, either make (1) or (3) go away.  That will
solve this problem.

- epicurus





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