[tex-live] How about auto-download of classes/styles etc. ?

Reinhard Kotucha reinhard.kotucha at web.de
Mon Oct 13 01:41:17 CEST 2008


Zdenek Wagner writes:
 > 2008/10/12 Victor Ivrii <vivrii at gmail.com>:
 > > On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 2:16 PM, Norbert Preining <preining at logic.at> wrote:
 > >> On So, 12 Okt 2008, Edd Barrett wrote:
 > >>> I think what I was asking is, do you think it is a useful idea?
 > >>
 > >> Of course, but good luck implementing it ;-) Or you can ask CS for the
 > >> code?
 > >
 > > Great idea to create a bloody mess: one adds a new package, then this
 > > package is snatched but it requires another package which is not on
 > > the computer or the newer version of the package which is already
 > > there and in turn ... and all this is while one is traveling with no
 > > or lousy internet connection and all this just to save a fistful of
 > > gigs not sufficient even for  one HD movie
 > >
 > AFAIK auto download can be disabled in MiKTeX. It is no problem in
 > principle to add some configuration setting for enabling/disabling it.
 > Or it may say: "I am going to download a missing package. Do you want
 > me to do it?" All users thus can be satisfied, those who like auto
 > download as well as those who do not like it and wish to do it always
 > manually.

Hi,
the question is not whether a switch can be provided.  That's the
easiest thing.  TeX Live is a multi-user system and users normally
don't have write permissions to the main texmf trees.  The only
alternative would be install the packages in the user's home
directory.  But then there will be different versions of a particular
package on the system, one installed by the user and one maintained
(installed and updated) by the admin.  I fear that it leads to
confusion.

The question is whether the effort is worthwhile.  Implementation is
not trivial.  I personally fully agree with Victor.  And almost
everybody said that it is a nice feature, but there must be a way to
disable it.  I have the impression that it is just regarded as a "nice
feature" but nobody intends to make use of it.

What I'm most concerned about is that the whole TeX system becomes
more and more complex.  What we are discussing here requires a lot of
new code which has to be written and maintained.  Maybe I'm too
conservative, but I think that it makes a lot of sense to think about
new features very carefully.

There is no way to make everyone happy anyway.

TeX Live offers the concept of 'collections' and 'schemes' for years.
Even if disk space matters, it's easy enough to customize the
installation conveniently.  Isn't it sufficient?  I don't recognise
the value of downloading packages on-the-fly.  It's usually more
anoying then helpful. 

Regards,
  Reinhard

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