[OS X TeX] Re: Installing unstable packages

[Theo Moore]

> You can simply run
> kpsewhich pgfplots.sty

Perfect. Thanks Herbert. Indeed it was running the pgfplots from the
texmf-var directory. I realised that I had to add an extra package
(polar) to use the polaraxis option from the pgfplots package.

Now, I'd like to understand a little bit better what happened, so I
can avoid asking so many questions in the future.

Can someone give me a reference or explain how the latex or texlive
directory structure works? How did latex know to use the new pgfplots
in ~/Library/texlive/2010/texmf-var instead of elsewhere? Moreover, I
noticed that other people recommended other directories. For example,
Herbert suggested ~/Library/texmf/tex/latex/ instead...

It would helpful if someone simply listed out all the various folders
one should be acquainted with and each of their purposes. This has
always been a source of confusion for me.