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"iPad is the most beautiful platform out there" Sorry, but I fail to understand, why any serious TeX-Head would say that. The platform is crippled and your pro

"iPad is the most beautiful platform out there" Sorry, but I fail to understand, why any serious TeX-Head would say that. The platform is crippled and your problem shows it. You are ranting in the wrong direction. -jsl

joshu 15y ago
Please don't sign your comments here. Thanks.
tedunangst 15y ago
Beauty and function are measured on different axes.
guywithabike 15y ago
"Beautiful" has nothing to do with whether it's crippled or not. In any case, how is a 4GB executable + several-second runtime for trivial documents Apple's fault? Is the iPad crippled because it can't run a crappy cross-compiled version of OpenOffice with a PS/2 mouse?
- kleiba 15y ago
  I guess the argument is that it's apple's "fault" because the restrictions of the platform require the whole package to be bundled as a single binary, instead of allowing a more modular distribution mechanism. Most of the contents in the 4G are extension packages. But I am not sure if "fault" is an appropriate term here anyway, we're simply observing two different approaches to software bundling that happen to be incompatible.
  - jawaddeo 15y ago
    The restrictions are what they are, but TeX doesn't help at all by being large with an internal (circular!) dependency tree that would (should) get you fired in a flash from a commercial software house.
    - kleiba 15y ago
      Apart from the fact that trees cannot be circular ;-) LaTeX installations work like a charm for other forms of distributions. I think it's really just a clash of philosophies here.
EdiX 15y ago
The author is not a TeX-head, or he wouldn't be surprised about WEB, Pascal and wouldn't confuse Plain TeX with LaTeX (the documentation of TeX is the former not the latter).
maximusprime 15y ago
I don't see any reason why LaTeX should be shelling out to bash. And having a mish-mash of loads of different languages creates unmaintainable bloatware.
- jsilence 15y ago
  I don't see any reason why it should _not_ shell out to bash. TeX/LaTeX was developed in a UNIX environment, which has the explicit philosophy of "the tool box with lots of little tools which do whatever little they do extremely good". The iOS Philosophy of "It has to be one binary app" resembles the philosophy of Windows Programs. Big single programs with lots of functionality unter one big GUI. How can anyone really be suprised that one of the oldest and mightiest gods of one religion can not be coerced into the shrine of a completely different religion?
  - maximusprime 15y ago
    True, it's a different philosophy. Personally, I'm in the camp of "rely on as little as you can". This includes not shelling out to bash unless you really really really can't achieve the same thing with a bit of more code. Apart from making the app less portable, more bug prone, less maintainable etc, it's just ugly.
mbq 15y ago
Fully agree; computer is something on which you can write, compile and run a native program without using external machines. And TeX is a computer typesetting system.

joshu 15y ago

Please don't sign your comments here. Thanks.

tedunangst 15y ago

Beauty and function are measured on different axes.

guywithabike 15y ago

"Beautiful" has nothing to do with whether it's crippled or not. In any case, how is a 4GB executable + several-second runtime for trivial documents Apple's fault? Is the iPad crippled because it can't run a crappy cross-compiled version of OpenOffice with a PS/2 mouse?

kleiba 15y ago
I guess the argument is that it's apple's "fault" because the restrictions of the platform require the whole package to be bundled as a single binary, instead of allowing a more modular distribution mechanism. Most of the contents in the 4G are extension packages. But I am not sure if "fault" is an appropriate term here anyway, we're simply observing two different approaches to software bundling that happen to be incompatible.
- jawaddeo 15y ago
  The restrictions are what they are, but TeX doesn't help at all by being large with an internal (circular!) dependency tree that would (should) get you fired in a flash from a commercial software house.
  - kleiba 15y ago
    Apart from the fact that trees cannot be circular ;-) LaTeX installations work like a charm for other forms of distributions. I think it's really just a clash of philosophies here.

EdiX 15y ago

The author is not a TeX-head, or he wouldn't be surprised about WEB, Pascal and wouldn't confuse Plain TeX with LaTeX (the documentation of TeX is the former not the latter).

maximusprime 15y ago

I don't see any reason why LaTeX should be shelling out to bash. And having a mish-mash of loads of different languages creates unmaintainable bloatware.

jsilence 15y ago
I don't see any reason why it should _not_ shell out to bash. TeX/LaTeX was developed in a UNIX environment, which has the explicit philosophy of "the tool box with lots of little tools which do whatever little they do extremely good". The iOS Philosophy of "It has to be one binary app" resembles the philosophy of Windows Programs. Big single programs with lots of functionality unter one big GUI. How can anyone really be suprised that one of the oldest and mightiest gods of one religion can not be coerced into the shrine of a completely different religion?
- maximusprime 15y ago
  True, it's a different philosophy. Personally, I'm in the camp of "rely on as little as you can". This includes not shelling out to bash unless you really really really can't achieve the same thing with a bit of more code. Apart from making the app less portable, more bug prone, less maintainable etc, it's just ugly.

mbq 15y ago

Fully agree; computer is something on which you can write, compile and run a native program without using external machines. And TeX is a computer typesetting system.