[tex-live] heise online: TeX Live 2011 im Anmarsch

[Rolf Dieterich]

Interesting discussion in the Heise forum:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/S-Zu-spaet/forum-205815/msg-20531976/re
ad/

I happened to stumble over Torsten Bronger's tbook project a few days ago. I
think it's mentioned in the documentation of the preview package.

While reading his arguments I had to smile sometimes, e.g. fixltx2e.

On the other hand, the fact that he doesn't recommand TeX/LaTeX to students
any more is really sad. Perhaps generation Facebook is overstrained by this
typesetting system?

I think one argument is not mentioned in the whole discussion: Quite a lot
of work has been contributed by students. But after having written their
master/PhD thesis they are lacking time and interest to support their
contributions any further. So many packages got orphaned over time. (See
e.g. the endnote package which still does not support hyperref. OK, there is
a hyperendnote code on comp.text.tex, but not officially on CTAN.)

Unlike Eclipse, ZEND, OpenOffice and so on it's not a major company or
industrial consortium which stands behind the TeX project.

And it's a general fact (observable in several other fields of the society)
that the work to be done on the one hand and the individual capabilities to
do the work on the other hand don't fit. In the context of the TeX world:
Those few people able to program in TeX often don't have the time because
they are engaged in other aspects of career and life.