Re: [9fans] tex on plan 9

[Jason Catena <jason.catena@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Oct 5, 2009 at 19:40, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> On Mon Oct  5 20:18:06 EDT 2009, rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
>> I'm just now looking at tex on plan 9 and finding that a 14-year old
>> release is not that useful with the newer packages.
>>
>> Has anyone tried newer stuff at all?
>
> i just hate how the rush to use every last new feature
> leads to things like gnu configure and autotools, and
> ancient warhorses like tex no longer running.

The software landscape is an ever-expanding forest of few blazed
trails, thickly covering new continents of human endeavor,
ever-diverging as each and every programmer customizes it to scratch
each itch and make it all more amenable for people less compatible
with a minimalist, elegant toolset mindset.  No gatekeepers, wardens,
librarians, or gardeners can suppress the wild profusion—folly to
try—but here and there a few likeminded souls hoe rows and cut
irrigation channels to cultivate the wild... and bicker about whether
an empty row should lie fallow quietly or pool water in error, and
whether to cut another row to satisfy each end.  That's what makes the
field cultivated, but all the same without commerce with the wild,
without incorporation of new ideas, it becomes a stagnant and hostile
exercise in standards-keeping.

> - erik

Jason Catena