[OS X TeX] MacTeX 2008?

[Jasper Knockaert]

Maarten Sneep schreef op 08-04-2008 22:31:
> On 8 apr 2008, at 00:43, Adam M. Goldstein wrote:
>> Maybe this is something everyone knows but me---when (if at all) will 
>> a TeXLive-MacTeX 2008 distribution be put together?
> 
> When it is done, I guess. I think there are some milestones expected 
> this year in the development of LuaTeX, with a first formal release at 
> TUG2008. That is late July, and I expect that TeXLive 2008 will include 
> a luatex release, if only to get a wider test of the application. That 
> said, the disk image gets updated on a regular basis, and work is 
> underway for texlive itself to support better updating. So a lot is 
> happening, but I don't expect the texlive 2008 DVD set to be one of my 
> birthday presents (late october).
> 
> Remember that a release on December 31st still counts as a 2008 release...
> 
> Is there a particular reason you ask?

I have always perceived the developments in the world of tex as being 
both exciting and chaotic. There has been the ongoing and somewhat 
unfocused effort of the LaTeX3 project (with the question still open if 
it will arrive before Hurd), then there are the more tangible results of 
the efforts around pdflatex/pdftex/pdfetex (I never really understood 
what this naming is about) and the closely related microtype package and 
probably also hyperref. To get better OS integration especially with 
respect to fonts support and probably also unicode we got XeTeX which 
unfortunately does not integrate well with the microtype developments. 
On the packaging front there were the more or less annually TeX Live 
distributions (that come in different flavours, MacTex being one of 
them), the ubiquitous tetex distro which is outdated but still comes 
with fink and macports, the very state-of-the-art MikTex (unfortunately 
with a strong Windows focus), and apparently something new is in the 
works on the TeX Live front. And now there seems to be need for a LuaTeX 
as well (but forgive me for not having got the message what it is 
about). And I could go on and elaborate on BibTex (where is this story 
going?), hlatex (anyone ever managed to successfully update it?), etc.

I may be the only one, but sometimes I wished there would be just a 
"click here" button that provided me with an up-to-date (and working) 
LaTeX distribution so now and then. MikTeX on Windows comes pretty close 
to that.


Jasper.