TeX Live 2026 is available for download now

Post by mr_mitm » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 9:08 AM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #28

thangalin wrote: post #20

ConTeXt often goes unmentioned in TeX threads. https://wiki.contextgarden.net/ It's a monolithic kernel with a relatively sane collection of "setup" macros that, by and large, can accomplish much of what LaTeX and its packages can do. If you're curious about how to build TeX from scratch, have a look at my TeX.SE answer: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/576314/2148 I'd imagine making a FOSS port in Rust that has non-c…

> ConTeXt often goes unmentioned in TeX threads. > It's a monolithic kernel with a relatively sane collection of "setup" macros that, by and large, can accomplish much of what LaTeX and its packages can do. I don't know what constitutes "sane", but I literally just downloaded and installed it right now because you mentioned it, and it choked on a trivial hello world: $ mtxrunjit --script context doc.tex ... > tex err…

Post by mr_mitm » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 9:16 AM UTC

noosphr wrote: post #19

alxhslm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an admirable project but they’re building on creaky foundations. Even the way TexLive is released feels like something from academia than a real piece of software.

Yes, unlike real software it has backward compatibility to the 80s.

Post by mr_mitm » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 9:25 AM UTC

noosphr wrote: post #34

mr_mitm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things break all the damn time with LaTeX. Example: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/730126/update-to-cle... Sometimes bugs appear only if you load three specific packages in a specific order. The fact that there are no namespaces and every package can modify everything makes it a complete nightmare. LaTeX would do well to take a hint from the lessons we learned in the past 40 years. Or just retire it and push…

Latex is not Tex.

Post by gucci-on-fleek » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 9:32 AM UTC

dataflow wrote: post #28

thangalin wrote: post #20

ConTeXt often goes unmentioned in TeX threads. https://wiki.contextgarden.net/ It's a monolithic kernel with a relatively sane collection of "setup" macros that, by and large, can accomplish much of what LaTeX and its packages can do. If you're curious about how to build TeX from scratch, have a look at my TeX.SE answer: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/576314/2148 I'd imagine making a FOSS port in Rust that has non-c…

> ConTeXt often goes unmentioned in TeX threads. > It's a monolithic kernel with a relatively sane collection of "setup" macros that, by and large, can accomplish much of what LaTeX and its packages can do. I don't know what constitutes "sane", but I literally just downloaded and installed it right now because you mentioned it, and it choked on a trivial hello world: $ mtxrunjit --script context doc.tex ... > tex err…

Post by gucci-on-fleek » Fri, Mar 06, 2026, 9:40 AM UTC

alxhslm wrote: post #11

xvilka wrote: post #4

I wonder what's the status of LaTeX 3[1][2]. Also, it would be nice to have an automation in the style of Tectonic[3][4] (which looks like a dead project itself) out of the box. [1] https://www.latex-project.org/latex3/ [2] https://github.com/latex3/latex3 [3] http://tectonic-typesetting.github.io/ [4] https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/

Seems like an admirable project but they’re building on creaky foundations. Even the way TexLive is released feels like something from academia than a real piece of software.