TeX, LaTeX and Friends - 2015-04-03 (page 2 of 3)

Sean Allred

4:00 PM

@JosephWright I would guess that this would be a chicken/egg situation.

Joseph Wright

@SeanAllred I might bring it up at the physical team meeting we are going to be able to have at TUG2015

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred sure chat is chat but the latex sources have switched from rcs to cvs to svn, but I don't think there has ever been an real proposal to switch out of svn

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle Indeed

@DavidCarlisle Would be more important if we had branches to worry about

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred yes also I have just switched all my open source projects to github as google just killed off googlecode

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright you never feel the need for branches? Or rebasing?

Sean Allred

4:01 PM

Has anyone seen this? help.github.com/articles/support-for-subversion-clients

@DavidCarlisle ^^^ github support for subversion clients

Faheem Mitha

What happens when you both work on stuff at the same time, and need to merge?

Or is there not enough overlap between you guys to worry about?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha For siunitx I have two branches (dev/stable): other than that, not really

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha My guess is that since this is fundamentally a volunteer position, work doesn't happen as quickly. The need isn't really there.

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright oh

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Rebasing still seems to me to be odd: a version control system should be like a lab book, no Tippex allowed!

Faheem Mitha

4:02 PM

@SeanAllred Not sure I know what you mean.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Should never happen

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright The rebasing is done "off the books", before it hits the public repos.

@JosephWright why?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Still not really 'right'

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha For a long time, I never used git branches. I never really had the time to try out different ideas simultaneously. It was only during my thesis that I actually started using branches.

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright I think that is fine. :-)

Joseph Wright

4:03 PM

@FaheemMitha I'd always start again if someone else had changed something

Faheem Mitha

@SeanAllred Ok.

@JosephWright Oh. And it doesn't happen often?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha We usually agree who is handling what before anyone changes stuff

@FaheemMitha Not usually

Faheem Mitha

I don't use branches in mercurial either. But then mostly it is just me.

@JosephWright I see.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Our approach is basically linear

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright yes, I see that.

David Carlisle

4:04 PM

@SeanAllred no point really, if you switch you switch, no point in changing the underlying repository then trying to pretend you havent:-)

Faheem Mitha

That's fine if it works for you. But it doesn't scale.

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle Well, you did say the main advantage of using git would be GitHub :)

Joseph Wright

@SeanAllred Clients not a big issue: I think we are all using the CLI

@FaheemMitha I'm always surprised by this: don't big teams agree who is in charge of each area?

Sean Allred

@JosephWright well, the CLI is a client – at least that's the program the linked article uses

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha the latex project isn't a scalable project It's never had active members in double figures.

Faheem Mitha

4:06 PM

@JosephWright Well, complex projects don't necessarily subdivide so neatly. There is lots of scope for people to step on each others toes. They might be editing the same files while working on a different feature, or something.

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle :-)

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Yes, you guys are a tech elite in close contact with each other. Not exactly the typical software development paradigm. :-)

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Should agree that in advance and commit sequentially, but really I'm very surprised people try to change the same thing at the same time

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle I just don't see how we can logically say that's a thing – I really believe that the 'project team' would grow if it was easier to contribute.

Joseph Wright

@SeanAllred Naive

Sean Allred

4:07 PM

@JosephWright Perhaps.

@JosephWright But genuine.

Joseph Wright

@SeanAllred It's very easy to contribute: mail us a modified source. Doesn't happen

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright It's a coordination thing. I think the complexity goes up quite fast with n, where n is the number of people involved.

Sean Allred

@JosephWright That's not easy to me.

It's not easy to see what changed, it's not easy to see why, it's not easy to discuss specific changes.

Though, I'm certainly really lazy when it comes to stuff like this. I admit that I'm used to doing things a particular way.

Joseph Wright

@SeanAllred Funny: to me it's probably easier than GitHub: it's clear you are not forking and are making a suggestion to someone

Sean Allred

(As are you)

Faheem Mitha

4:09 PM

It becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of what everyone is doing. After a certain point you can start spending as much or more time keeping track of what people are doing as geting work done.

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred but if there are not the resources to manage a large distributed project, not allowing that growth is a positive thing.

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle out of curiosity, what resources would be required?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Never done a large project so can't comment

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred time

Faheem Mitha

The other great thing about DVCS's is the ability to commit locally. This is really useful. And then you can back up to your own private repos. Don't have to worry about losing your changes.

Sean Allred

4:10 PM

@DavidCarlisle I can definitely sympathize with that.

Faheem Mitha

Losing work is the stuff of nightmare for a sw developer.

Sean Allred

Lots of open PRs on sx.el still.

Joseph Wright

@SeanAllred, @FaheemMitha One thing SVN offers that Git is violently against is that the sources themselves have the revision in ($Id): that's still important to us

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Mercurial still offers that. :-) And you can use tags.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha That certainly is useful if on the train or whatever

Sean Allred

4:11 PM

@JosephWright Yeah, I've noticed the sources use that a lot

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Yes, I know about Mercurial, but it's not built in so confuses people

Sean Allred

But things like gitinfo2 are a good compromise – I'm certain an equivalent system could be devised

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright It's generally useful. Do you guys just have unsaved changes till you commit? And what about while you are working on it? What happens to intermediate changes?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Memory stick or whatever

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright So, you make lots of backups?

Sean Allred

4:12 PM

@FaheemMitha necessarily, they vanish, but in the few times I've worked with a CVS repository, I've created a local git one to track my changes

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Intermediate changes are my point about a lab book: each commit should be what it is, if you mess it up the log should say so

@FaheemMitha No, not really

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright I use temporary commits to save local state. When I'm done, I make a final commit.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Very rarely do anything that does not go to the SVN pronto

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright That sounds like a lot of pointless clutter. What's the point of documenting your mistakes?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Lab book

Faheem Mitha

4:13 PM

@JosephWright Small changes then? If your system is very modular, that might work.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha no one is working live off the svn repository (ctan is for usable versions) so you can commit to the main svn branch as you work.

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Ok.

That makes for a lot of churn, though. Of course, maybe you don't make many mistakes.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha A lab book records what you did, not what you wanted to do: I see version control in the same way

Faheem Mitha

I might have 10-20 commits for one usable commit, depending on what I'm doing. I don't want to see all that crap.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha why think of svn commit as being git commit and ctan upload being git push, why is that churn?

Joseph Wright

4:15 PM

@FaheemMitha Have your read our log ;-)

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Well, for one thing, a git commit doesn't have to be final.

@JosephWright Nope.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha 'Typo' comes up a lot

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha It's good reading :)

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha ask Joseph if ctan uploads are final...

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright you should take a look at the new evolve Mercurial extension. It's state of the art.

Joseph Wright

4:16 PM

@DavidCarlisle Oh don't

Faheem Mitha

It's where it's at, man.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha At some point you'll realise that no one is going to use mercurial for new projects

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright my notion of commits it that you keep things clean. So later on people can easily see what you were doing.

@DavidCarlisle Sure they do.

Well, maybe not you guys...

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha I've notice that in the Git workflow stuff, and have messed about a bit to try it out, but it still feels odd

Sean Allred

@JosephWright It's a different way of thinking

Joseph Wright

4:18 PM

@FaheemMitha atlassian.com/git/tutorials for example

Faheem Mitha

i don't see the point of having lots of stuff saying - oh crap, I should have done this, but didn't, here's another try. Or, "scratch commit".

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha I have a feeling neither of us has kept a lab book :)

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Why not? Tells other people what you were really up to. I'd imagine in a business situation people need to see that detail

Sean Allred

@JosephWright They absolutely don't.

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright You people do TeX. Which nobody else can understand. I see this as straining at a gnat. To use biblical terms.

Joseph Wright

4:19 PM

@SeanAllred For performance reviews, surely?

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright People are looking at a log for information,usually, not to see what typos you made when.

Sean Allred

@JosephWright Nope. For performance reviews, it's generally a matter of how complex the solution was and how long it took you.

Faheem Mitha

And the cleaner and clearer it is, the better.

Sean Allred

In industry, nobody (should) care about your mistakes – they should care about what you've done right

(now, within reason…)

Faheem Mitha

Of course, if there are only 3 people working on it at any given them, and you are all talking to each other all the time anyway, then it may not really matter very much.

David Carlisle

4:21 PM

@FaheemMitha yes some do, but google didn't kill goolecode to push people on to mercurial, they left a strong hint to use github, microsoft didn't opensource the .NET runtime on to mercurial (or even their own codeplex) they used github the w3c HTML test suite was on mercurial but now it' on github, there is sort of a theme...

Faheem Mitha

How many people are currently active on this repos, anyway?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha, @SeanAllred I don't think you'd get on with the rules for the LaTeX2e sources, which predate using SVN and are 'step the version for each code change'

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle Sure, it is dominant. No question about that.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha LaTeX2e: Frank, David, Me; LaTeX3: Frank, Bruno, me (perhaps Will)

Faheem Mitha

But there are plenty of people using Mercurial.

Sean Allred

4:22 PM

@JosephWright I don't want to seem dismissive, but I don't know why that rule is still in place.

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle BitBucket have moved from Mercurial to Git by default ...

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright So 4 people. Not that many.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Certainly

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright unfortunately.

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha Mercurial isn't going to happen :)

Faheem Mitha

4:23 PM

@SeanAllred Isn't going to happen for what/who?

If you mean for LaTeX, I'm just using it as an example. Not trying to push it.

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha It's never going to be the large-scale dvcs.

Faheem Mitha

Doesn't make any difference to me, anyway.

@SeanAllred large-scale dvcs? what does that mean?

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha At the moment, git is too big to fail. I'm sure another will come in time that will replace git, but it will not be hg

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha there are plenty of people using CVS (I was using it a few minutes ago:-) but it would be a strange choice for a new project, given the way the tide is flowing

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha, @SeanAllred Don't get me wrong: I'd be happy to move to Git

Faheem Mitha

4:24 PM

@SeanAllred agreed.

@DavidCarlisle true

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha and true of mercurial:-)

Sean Allred

@JosephWright I just wish I could impress how beneficial it could be for the LaTeX project as a whole

Not just in how the sources are managed, but in how public the tech is

Faheem Mitha

Yes, git seems pretty dominant for the forseeable future. Nobody is disagreeing with that.

But it is also a community project. As long as there are people using it, and people working on it, it will continue.

@DavidCarlisle not true of mercurial.

CVS is basically dead. Development is at zero. On the other hand, Mercurial is being very actively developed.

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred step the version? So that the log file shows which version a user is using

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle But that can be automated with a git hook – after all, only usable versions are sent to CTAN (ideally ;))

Faheem Mitha

4:30 PM

@JosephWright what version is that? the version counter?

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha \listfiles output

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred we also have \changes entries for a typeset change log, which are currently date and version based. Of course there are alternatives but that is an unbroken 25 year change log, and not something to just drop as it doesn't fit a natural distributed git flow..

Faheem Mitha

@SeanAllred ?

@DavidCarlisle why can't you import it into git?

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle Why doesn't it fit into the natural git flow?

I use such changelogs personally.

Faheem Mitha

@DavidCarlisle DVCS is almost a superset of centralized VCS. There are a few things DVCS can't do that centralized systems can, but they are pretty marginal. Everything else can be emulated.

E.g. locking, which makes no sense for DVCS.

David Carlisle

4:34 PM

@SeanAllred the \changes entry has a filedate and version number, which implies that the changed file has a (new) date and version, which was what you were implying ought to be dropped in favour of an automated hook on push

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle Certainly doesn't need to be.

David Carlisle

@FaheemMitha of course, as I said above, but if you are not using the decentralised features, using svn as it is designed is simpler than using git in a way that emulates svn

@SeanAllred doesn't need to be what?

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle I doubt you make a \changes entry for typos.

Doesn't need to be dropped.

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred \changes{v2.3j}{1994/11/10}{fixed a few typos}

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle No reason that can't be kept.

I'll try to devise an example system (for fun) when I'm off work

For now, I have to study for an exam :)

Faheem Mitha

4:40 PM

@DavidCarlisle Well, some of the decentralized features can be useful, as I attempted to explain above. I sense you are not convinced, though.

Joseph Wright

5:00 PM

@FaheemMitha Still on this :-)

(Have been away for a few minutes)

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright ?

Joseph Wright

@SeanAllred We have a mirror of the SVN for LaTeX3 on GitHub, originally Will's idea but generally quite handy (notice how I never point anyone to the SVN web interface)

@FaheemMitha Discussion still seemed to be going on

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Oh. No, I don't think so. That was my last comment.

And I don't get the sense I am changing any minds around here. Not that I expected to.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha I think it's fair to point out I have no proper programming or CS background, only what I've learned 'on the job', so may well miss things that are useful/standard. I know how I use version control (Git nowadays for my own code, Mercurial in the past, SVN for the team stuff): there may well be other approaches.

@FaheemMitha You are missing the fact that I'd welcome a move from SVN to Git :-)

Faheem Mitha

But at always, it is interesting to see that things one takes for granted are not shared by others.

@JosephWright Yes, but you already did. :-)

Joseph Wright

5:04 PM

@FaheemMitha Ah

@FaheemMitha Will Robertson would be very keen but I think we both know we'd need to convince all of the team and that would not be easy

Faheem Mitha

Now if I could have made David exclaim - how could I have been so blind! the scales have fallen from my eyes! etc. etc. Well, that would be something.

@JosephWright From what you describe of your workflow, it doesn't sound like it is critical, and if what you have is working well for you, I don't see a problem.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha David is not the worry :-)

Faheem Mitha

As they say, if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha That's at least in part true

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright well, he clearly doesn't see the point of DVCS. At least in the context of the LaTeX 3 project.

I personally think the point of DVCSs is obvious. Though I realised long ago not everyone sees it like that.

Joseph Wright

5:07 PM

@FaheemMitha It would be nice to be able to accept pull requests on GitHub, for example

@FaheemMitha Remember the canonical nature of the LaTeX sources is important: that's a big issue

Faheem Mitha

After I first saw a DVCS (Mercurial) it took me like 5 minutes to see the point of it. Or so it seems in hindsight. Might have been longer in reality.

@JosephWright But don't other projects have that requirement? As @SeanAllred said, you can simply bless one repos/branch as the canonical version.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Yes, but only in a 'convention' sense: with SVN we have root ownership of the master in a technical sense

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright It's an enforceable convention. Practically, I don't see a difference.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha You can download a TeX file and use it without compiling the source: that's not true with anything that builds binaries. So there is a lot of concern in making sure if some user picks up a file the file itself can be traced back to a specific version.

Faheem Mitha

So, who are the big DVCS holdouts in your group? Or would you prefer not to say?

Joseph Wright

5:12 PM

@FaheemMitha It's more a feeling: we've never actually discussed it

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright oh

@JosephWright I'm not clear how centralised vs distributed makes a difference here.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha The question is, as @DavidCarlisle says, where are the benefits for our workflow: a 'sales pitch' is going to need something tangible

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Then maybe you should put together a sales pitch. :-)

Or a transition plan. Assuming you have the time and energy.

Are Github pull requests a real possibility, btw?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha SVN has a globally unique checkin serial number and (by convention) an incremental version number. You can arrange for SVN to add an $Id$ line to the sources (expl3, for example) or always increment the version on every checkin (LaTeX2e). The former plan fails with a DVCS, the latter is certainly more tricky (although still workable)

@FaheemMitha We've had some pull requests for l3build, which at present I have to add by hand. I'd probably rework some bits of them in any case, but it would be better to accept the merges then modify after-the-fact.

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Oh, I see. You want the version number embedded in the source of each file?

Joseph Wright

5:16 PM

@FaheemMitha For LaTeX2e I don't think we'll do anything: SVN works, development is very restricted and needs a lot of understanding. For LaTeX3 things are different.

Szabolcs

Hi! What do things like [1 mean in the log file?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha At present, yes: see expl3 sources

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright ok

Joseph Wright

@Szabolcs Page shipped out with something happening

@FaheemMitha We have the GitHub mirror already: other than dealing with version strings, a switch would be trivial at a technical level

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright ok

Joseph Wright

5:19 PM

@FaheemMitha I do see the business that @SeanAllred alludes to about being 'accessible': GitHub is certainly a better place to report issues than Gnats (the LaTeX2e bug tracker)

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright yes, github is popular.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Probably we (or at least some of us) would pick up branches and the like for features if we switched: would be a cultural change so not immediate

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright ok. you can do branches in svn, but it is a nutty system. different directories - merging must be a nightmare.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha I know about branches in SVN: I do not want to try that! (siunitx went from no version control to SVN with two branches. It's fine if you only want dev/stable and to merge rarely.)

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright agreed. you don't want to try that.

2

Joseph Wright

5:22 PM

@FaheemMitha :-)

@FaheemMitha I might be wrong about the Git business: I think though this is one for a face-to-face discussion, which handily will be possible at TUG2015 for quite a large part of the team

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright wrong about what?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Likely objections from other team members

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright oh, you mean they might not object?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Certainly possible as it's never been discussed in any substantive way

Szabolcs

I' going to paste this here as well, since I'm available in chat to clarify anything that needs clarification ...

0

Q: Simplest way to extract errors from log files

When running pdflatex -interaction=nonstopmode I am looking for: Ways to detect whether there were errors solely based on the log files (assume we don't have access to the process exit code). Extract a user-friendly error message from the log file. Error messages seem to always start with a !...

errors

Faheem Mitha

5:26 PM

@JosephWright ok. Well, I think DVCS certainly offers some advantages. Though I'm no fan of Git. terrible UI.

David Carlisle

@Szabolcs auctex or any of the tex IDE are doing this, can't you just borrow the code from there?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha As I've said, I think in the TeX world GitHub and thus Git is the most sensible choice

Szabolcs

@DavidCarlisle I know you mentioned auctex David, but I was hoping someone who already knows the solution (and doesn't need to refer to auctex) would be able to answer ... then I wouldn't need to try to understand emacs lisp ...

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright sure. Wasn't arguing against that. Just saying I dislike the Git UI.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Far enough: I probably would go for Mercurial on that basis too

@StefanKottwitz Thanks for e-mail re. servers: need time to digest and pursue UK-TUG committee (and solutions in the UK)

Faheem Mitha

5:32 PM

@JosephWright Well, we agree on that, at least. :-)

Joseph Wright

Hello @PhilMolyneux

Phil Molyneux

@Joseph Hi - Just discovered the chat part of StackExchange following cfr's course earlier this week

Joseph Wright

@PhilMolyneux Cool: was going to ask if you saw the e-mail

@PhilMolyneux Obviously 'yes'

@FaheemMitha, @SeanAllred Perhaps I'll try to get some key arguments together (with Will) and make the case later in the year, at least for LaTeX3

Phil Molyneux

@Joseph - since cfr wants to do a second course we should put up the other course materials

Joseph Wright

@PhilMolyneux Yes

@PhilMolyneux We got stalled (again)!

@PhilMolyneux @NicolaTalbot might have some useful input, I suspect

@PhilMolyneux We've got some sections, just need some content!

@FaheemMitha I hope you'll like the fact that the UK-TUG training stuff is in a DVCS, even though it's Git: github.com/uktug/latex-beginners-course :-)

Faheem Mitha

5:42 PM

@JosephWright DVCS is good. :-)

The last one seems to have been in 2013. Are you having one this year?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Possibly

@FaheemMitha I probably need to raise this with the committee and the 'team'

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright Ok. 10 pounds is very cheap, though.

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha The team: @NicolaTalbot, @PhilMolyneux, me and a guy called Jay if he's well

@FaheemMitha Heavy subsidy

@FaheemMitha Venue cost us £300 originally, but now £600 as we no longer get a discount :-(

@FaheemMitha For students, even that can be too much as they have to pay travel

Faheem Mitha

5:58 PM

@JosephWright true, but you should try and filter it in some way. So you don't just get anyone. How many days is this course for?

Joseph Wright

@FaheemMitha Just the one

@FaheemMitha We did want to get people to come!

@FaheemMitha I'll have to see what the committee want to do

Faheem Mitha

@JosephWright sure, I just meant try to select people who might benefit, rather than some random person who won't know or care.

You could set up a little test on the web or something...

If they don't know anything, they probably aren't going to get much from a one day course.

Sean Allred

6:20 PM

@FaheemMitha magit is magical. I recommend it as a git client even for those that don't use emacs.

Faheem Mitha

@SeanAllred the emacs git interface?

Sean Allred

@Szabolcs vvv

@FaheemMitha Oh yes, the best.

Faheem Mitha

@SeanAllred That's probably meant to be CL .

Sean Allred

@JosephWright If you send me what you think may be of concern with the transition, I'll try to put together solution sketches. You know where to find my email :)

@FaheemMitha Posh.

Faheem Mitha

@SeanAllred Victoria Beckham?

Sean Allred

6:24 PM

@FaheemMitha ? 'posh' as in 'nonsense'

Faheem Mitha

@SeanAllred joke, attempt at.

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred not a meaning I'm familiar with:-)

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle I more-or-less made it up this week.

@DavidCarlisle Does it have a standing meaning?

David Carlisle

@SeanAllred port out, starboard home, the upper classes

Sean Allred

(it sorta morphed from 'psh' as an onomatopoeia)

@DavidCarlisle That sort of makes sense: urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=posh Maybe I just picked it up from someone. Funny how language can act as a virus.

David Carlisle

6:27 PM

@SeanAllred it would never be used in that sense in the UK

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha me = vvv

Faheem Mitha

I have \surroundwithmdframed[linewidth=2pt, backgroundcolor=LightGray]{tabular}. Can I get a lighter gray? And what colors does mdframed recognize?

Sean Allred

@DavidCarlisle Because the illness has not yet jumped the pond ;)

@FaheemMitha Anything you can use with xcolor

Faheem Mitha

@SeanAllred that's obviously ST, and that might be the android Data. But that's just a guess.

Whoever he is. he doesn't look happy.

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha 'tis indeed

yo'

6:28 PM

@FaheemMitha color=LightGray!50!white

Sean Allred

the all-powerful mixin

Faheem Mitha

@yo' Thanks. Increase or decrease 50 to make it lighter?

yo'

@FaheemMitha I'm never sure, try it :)

Faheem Mitha

@yo' ok

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha Always best to ask the system

Faheem Mitha

6:31 PM

@SeanAllred you are probably thinking of pish, which indeed has the meaning you evidently intended, albeit it is an archaic exclamation.

Sean Allred

@FaheemMitha Ah, that works :D I like old words

@FaheemMitha I feel like I'm bringing sexy back

Faheem Mitha

Though the original meaning of "pish" was just an expression intended to express or contempt or disgust. So not meaning rubbish, exactly.

Sean Allred

Oh. :(

sad duck

Paul Gessler

@SeanAllred or 'bosh' which does in fact mean 'nonsense'. :-)

Sean Allred

@JosephWright b/p aren't too dissimilar

Faheem Mitha

6:37 PM

@PaulGessler tosh does.

I was not aware of bosh.

nope, not finding that meaning.

tosh is an old-fashioned word meaning nonsense. Almost certainly of English origin.

I take that back, apparently bosh means that too.

thefreedictionary.com/bosh

Apparently both bosh and tosh also mean line breaks. Bringing this discussion neatly back on topic.

Paul Gessler

@FaheemMitha I was told the only things strictly on-topic in this chatroom were ducks and cricket. :-)

Sean Allred

@PaulGessler What about rep palindromes?

Paul Gessler

@SeanAllred oh, yes, those too! :-)

Sean Allred

:)

Faheem Mitha

6:55 PM

@PaulGessler sometimes football too.

Cortizol

Hi guys! Is there 64-bit version for TeX Live?

Paul Gessler

@Cortizol which OS do you use?

Frank Mittelbach

@JosephWright @DavidCarlisle is ltnews22 really still supposed to say May 2015?

Cortizol

@PaulGessler It's for my professor. I think windows 7.

Paul Gessler

@Cortizol 64-bit binaries are not distributed for Windows by default

@Cortizol but see tex.stackexchange.com/a/227731/21344 if you really want them for some reason. Not a lot of benefit to getting them as far as I can tell.

Sean Allred

7:07 PM

@Cortizol Why would you need 64-bit, anyway?

Cortizol

@SeanAllred The same question is wondering my professor, but in his office faculty changed all "old" computers with new one. So, it wasn't his idea.

@PaulGessler Thanks. I will see that.

Sean Allred

@Cortizol Don't get me wrong -- 64-bit is very useful in many applications (especially graphical ones), but TeX isn't such an application

Paul Gessler

@Cortizol you can run 32-bit TeX Live with no problems at all on 64-bit Windows.

Sean Allred

You can easily run 32-bit programs on 64-bit machines.

Cortizol

Oh, if that is case than splendid! I will install 32-bit.

Faheem Mitha

7:23 PM

@Cortizol you could build it yourself.

Frank Mittelbach

has this type of question ever been answered? tex.stackexchange.com/questions/236688/…

I think it is (though perhaps not well asked) quite a puzzling little detail of LaTeX's inner working

yo'

@FrankMittelbach it knows to be PITA. I'm not sure it has been asked before.

I'm always puzzled why \vbox to \textheight{...} doesn't fit in one page.

Frank Mittelbach

@yo' yes nice one isn't it but it fits on the second or kind of

yo'

@FrankMittelbach well, it's pushed into the second page

Frank Mittelbach

@yo' sure because of the legal breakpoint on page 1

but that is still surprising

and yes I know too

yo'

7:39 PM

@FrankMittelbach yeah

egreg

@FrankMittelbach I think to have an answer for a similar problem.

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg the answer for that one is simply the mark at the beginning of a LaTeX document but it si kind of weird if you run into it unaware

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Here it is

5

A: Extra blank page mysteriously being made to appear (XeTeX)

I can reproduce your problem if the figure is too high to fit in the remaining part of the page after the chapter style. There's nothing you can do about it other than reducing the figure height or letting it float. Here's an explanation. After a chapter title, LaTeX disallows a page break. The...

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg well it is not the vertical space as such it is the \mark before it that initializes the running header info

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Is a \mark a legal break point?

David Carlisle

7:51 PM

@FrankMittelbach hmm I guess 1st Jan would have been more consistent..

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg not it is not so what I'm saying is rubbish

egreg

@FrankMittelbach :)

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg but neither is the any space vanishing afterwards ...

its the break point vanishing

egreg

@FrankMittelbach The only legal break point is the space or penalty before \chapter; this vanishes at the break; then on the second page no break point is available.

Frank Mittelbach

8:07 PM

@egreg chapter uses \vspace* and that doesn't vanish -- it is the \topskip space that produces the problem and because of the mark or the \write-{} that one becomes a breakpoint

\begin{document}
\vbox to 1.2\textheight{}
\end{document}

@egrep while this doesn't show the problem:

\begin{document}
xxx
\eject
\vbox to 1.2\textheight{}
\end{document}

@DavidCarlisle so? change it Jan then?

egreg

@FrankMittelbach Yes, that's the vertical glue that is the only feasible break point.

David Carlisle

@FrankMittelbach yes I guess so

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg so it is because of the way LaTeX uses \write not \mark (I wonder if that got changed or whether I only dreamed it)

@DavidCarlisle ok then I'm going to update the project pages

@DavidCarlisle well the combined one on CTAN will still say May for a while but ...

one can't expect us to get those things right ... can one?

@DavidCarlisle arrg inside it gives /06/01 as an example ... not really wrong but ...

@DavidCarlisle well maybe ok even though there will never ever be a 06/01 format now

egreg

8:28 PM

@FrankMittelbach I'm not sure it makes a difference: if the \topskip glue is preceded by either a \mark or a \write it becomes a feasible break point.

Frank Mittelbach

@egreg technically no but the explanation is slightly different then. anyway I wonder if there shouldn't be a nobreak following that \write in \document

egreg

@FrankMittelbach That might be good, so the first \topskip is not a break point (unless something else comes along, of course).

David Carlisle

@FrankMittelbach I was just looking at latex2.09 earlier:

% \begin{macro}{\mark}
%    \LaTeX~2.09 initialized an empty mark.  Who knows, someone may have
%    relied on it:
%    \begin{macrocode}
\mark{{}{}}
%    \end{macrocode}

Frank Mittelbach

@DavidCarlisle so that's what I remembered ... old fond memories :-)

David Carlisle

@FrankMittelbach that was an example of a post latex package update date

Frank Mittelbach

8:35 PM

@DavidCarlisle yes I eventually realized

I'm slow these days (and rusty)

David Carlisle

@FrankMittelbach but we're not as old as @egreg

Frank Mittelbach

@DavidCarlisle doesn't help if he is less rusty

egreg

@FrankMittelbach :)

David Carlisle

@FrankMittelbach perhaps but we can probably do an update before tL pretest done.

1010011010

Hi, I noticed my question from over half a year ago is still untouched: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/202242/…. So can I conclude from this that it's hard to do / typographically not sound / or otherwise?

Okay, untouched is a pretty big word.

David Carlisle

8:56 PM

@1010011010 I'd probably start from @FrankMittelbach's answer here

25

A: Placing figures inside a two-column document

The multicol environment is not designed to support column floats. The concept of balancing makes this next to impossible to automatically provide correct results in the general case and therefore I decided not to extend multicolin this direction for 2e. For example, with multicol you can change...

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