[tex-live] texworks in TL 2010

[Lars Madsen]

On 2010-11-13 20:17, Victor Ivrii wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Lars Madsen<daleif at imf.au.dk>  wrote:
>> On 2010-11-13 03:40, Axel E. Retif wrote:
>
>>
>> I know, that was a typo on my part, my point has been mare also by others,
>> as there are some many more (pdf)LaTeX users than plain TeX, XeLaTeX and
>> ConTeXt users combined (my estimate), why not please the majority.
>>
>>>
>
>
>
> Users should at least know WHAT they are using and probably the best
> way to do it is to have them configured the  frontend. Nanny approach
> will hurt them in the future. Too many Mac LaTeX users who had
> everything installed for them are truly sure that TeXShop is all what
> they need and are REALLY surprised when learn that TeXShop is not a
> TeX.
>

we see that a lot too, get email explaining this and this problem "and 
I'm using TeXnicCenter"

it takes users quite a long time to get used to the fact that the LaTeX 
distribution is separate from the editor.

> PS I am talking from my perspective as a mathematician and in
> mathematics (pdf)LaTeX is the only game in the town so there is no
> need to proselyte; on the contrary one needs to discourage students
> from copying the preamble from their supervisor who most likely did
> the same then added few packages and macros used by the coauthors
> without even noticing that the same thing is defined by few different
> macros and the best way to do this is to create some obstacles.
>

it has taken me about 6-8 years to get most of our researchers to 
produce nice LaTeX. For most of their teaching material I get to look it 
through before sending it of for publishing. It has become a lot better 
comepared to when I started.

We are also in the process of teaching students to document very package 
and every macro they add to their preambles, such that they themselfs 
know what they do, and such that if they give their preamble to someone 
else, they will also have an idea about what is what. I ti is a long 
process though.

/daleif