[OS X TeX] Re: suggestion

[Herbert Schulz]

On Nov 10, 2009, at 6:46 PM, <epicurus at forallx.net> wrote:

>> Message: 2
>> Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2009 16:32:39 -0500
>> From: epicurus at forallx.net
>> Subject: [OS X TeX] suggestion
>> 
>> There've been some complaints about the lag of TL2009 showing up on
>> servers.  I certainly don't mind waiting.  But I will say it was
>> supremely irritating that the following three things were
>> simultaneously true:
>> 
>> (1) The MacTeX page tug.org/mactex had a link that said it was TL2009
>> (complete with a date and size), and gave no indication that TL2008
>> might get downloaded instead.  The "note" seems only to reflect that
>> either TL2009 would be downloaded or, if a mirror wasn't up to date,
>> nothing at all would be downloaded. 
>> 
>> (2) The result of clicking on that link was the download of a file
>> that was in fact TL2008.
>> 
>> (3) The filename, both once downloaded and as appeared at the end of
>> the URL in Safari's status bar, gave zero indication that it was for
>> TL2008.  In fact, it gives no indication of year at all.
>> 
>> These three together are seriously misleading.  I had no way of
>> knowing that TL2008 was coming until it was already downloaded and
>> unzipped.  Had either (1) or (3) been absent, I wouldn't have wasted
>> all that time downloading.  When using Safari for downloading, we
>> don't see what symbolic links are pointing to what.
>> 
>> Please, in the future, either make (1) or (3) go away.  That will
>> solve this problem.
> 
> On rereading my message, I see that I phrased it poorly so that some
> might take offense (indeed some did).  When I said it was irritating
> that "these three things are simultaneously true", I wasn't providing
> a list of things that are each individually irritating.  Rather, any
> two of those three, without the third, wouldn't be irritating to me at
> all.  The three of them, however, were jointly irritating.
> 
> My complaint was that, having clicked on a link that says "TL2009", I
> got a file that was TL2008 *and* had no way to know this was TL2008
> until the download and unzipping were complete---because the filename
> doesn't have the year in it.  I made a suggestion that for 2010,
> either: the filename *that one sees in Safari* (in the downloads
> window and the status bar) be changed to reflect the year, OR: that
> the mactex page clearly state that in clicking on the TL2010 link one
> might get the previous year's distro instead.
> 
> So to be clear: the complaint is really about signposting.  I wasn't
> complaining that there is a lag.  I wasn't "suggesting" that the lag
> be made to go away.  I'm perfectly fine with waiting for propagation.
> I wasn't asking for a link to a specific mirror that has the real
> TL2009.  This is why my suggestion was to make either the first or
> third thing vanish; I assumed that there's nothing that can be done
> about the second thing.  The other two are issues with labeling.
> 
> - epicurus

Howdy,

I understood what your problem was and sympathise. With some luck you'll be able to keep the whole package up to date via tlmgr/TeX Live Utility from now on---including not having to do a full update for TeX Live 2010. From 2008->2009 there were some structural changes in TeX Live that didn't allow for that nice transition. Sorry, no guarantees! :-)

Maybe news travels too fast on this list? :-)

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)