[OS X TeX] LaTeX Updater i-Package updated

[Martin Stokhof]

On 1 May, 2006, at 15:54, Josep M. Font wrote:

> El 01/05/2006, a les 14:32, Gerben Wierda va escriure:
>
>> Becuase I make it a rule to have i-Packages you can uninstall safely. 
>> If I
>> would install in texmf.tetex this would not be the case. Uninstalling 
>> the
>> LaTeX Updater could then only be achieved as a side-effect of 
>> installing
>> the TeX i-Package. It also opens the option of having the 
>> LaTeX-updater
>> contain multiple versions (e.g. a beta and a stable) because then it
>> becomes even more improtant to be able to uninstall.
>>
>> If I wanted to have a LaTeX update in texmf.tetex, I would update the 
>> TeX
>> i-Package itself, not provide a "overwrite" i-Package.
>
> I am disappointed. I thought the LaTeX part of my TeX installation 
> would be updated. At least this is what I understood from the package 
> name, and from its readme:
>
>> This is Gerben Wierda's LaTeX updater i-Package for TeX for Mac OS X. 
>> It installs the latest LaTeX macro package on top of an existing TeX 
>> install.
>
> I misunderstood what "on top of" actually means. I would suggest put 
> warnings in both i-packages, the LaTeX updater and the TeX one. I'm 
> afraid not many of your users know about the texmf.local affair, etc. 
> etc.
>
> JMaF
>

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure Gerben will do so if I am ;-), but 
isn't the point of putting a newer, but experimental (so perhaps not 
completely reliable and/or compatible) version in texmf.local this that 
TeX will use whatever is in texmf.local first (actually after whatever 
you have put in ~/Library/texmf, but forget about that), so you will 
actually be running the new version, while the older version is 
maintained in texmf (but not used)? That way if something turns out to 
be wrong with the new version you can gracefully degrade  to the old 
version, simply by removing whatever is in texmf.local.


Martin

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