Re: Problems recompiling LaTeX2ConTeXt.tex

[Simon Pepping <spepping@scaprea.hobby.nl>]

On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 12:03:54AM +0100, Jens-Uwe Morawski wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2003 21:25:04 +0100
> Simon Pepping <spepping@scaprea.hobby.nl> wrote:
> 
> 
> > I think running Red Hat 8.0, with teTeX-1.0.7 with ConTeXt ver:
> > 2002.1.28 is a reasonable thing to do. Most of the software packages I
> > run are older than that. One only runs the latest and greatest of
> > software one is especially interested in.
> 
> Hmm, aren't you interested in ConTeXt? ;-)

I am still to install this week's version; does that make me fail? ;-)

> The real question: would you like that people ask/bother you
> about bugs and missing features of DocBookInConTeXt that are
> already fixed or implemented. I'm sure your answer is: No. So,
> why use an old ConTeXt if Hans spends so much time to improve it.
> Why use an old and buggy pdftex that is shipped with RedHat's
> teTeX? Why use a TeX system that does not support real (no ae tricks)
> 8-bit (T1) ComputerModern fonts ? I see no reason.

I see very good reasons. For an average user a computer installation
is a utility. He does not spend his time on learning lots about this
or that piece of software, like we do. Perhaps he spends his time
singing, or writing stories, or annoying his wife, or whatever. That
is why Thomas Esscher, RedHat, Debian etc. do their useful work:
package all that stuff into an integrated, configured distribution, so
that an average user can use it without hesitation to write his songs
or his hatemail or whatever he does with it. Did you notice that many
developers run MS Windows because they are not interested in the setup
problems that a Linux distribution presents (more so in the past)?
Like all the other users, they want to do their own stuff, without
having to spend a lot of time on the utilities.

I believe that a community is bound to the software that has been
released as stable, certainly if it has gone into widely used
distributions. Of course, older versions do not support new features,
and the more so with rapidly developing software. But apart from such
new features, I do not think it is right to say to a user: Oh, but
that version is a year old, you should upgrade now. An average user
upgrades when he buys a new distro.

I think the TeX world has had rather bad behaviour in this
respect. Too many people have thought that if wizards could give you
the right answer, then all was well. It is not. We should aim to
develop and package software that installs well, runs well, is clear
and understandable in its usage instructions. TeTeX, fptex, TeXLive
and MikTeX have done tremendously good work. 10 years ago it required
strong knowledge to set up a working TeX installation. These days most
users can do it.

Regards, Simon

-- 
Simon Pepping
email: spepping@scaprea.hobby.nl