trunk/doc/ltnews19.tex

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  29 % Filename: ltnews19.tex
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  31 % This is issue 19 of LaTeX News.
  32
  33 \documentclass{ltnews}
  34
  35 \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  36
  37 \usepackage{lmodern,url}
  38
  39 \publicationmonth{September}
  40 \publicationyear{2009}
  41
  42 \publicationissue{19}
  43
  44 \begin{document}
  45
  46 \maketitle
  47
  48 \section{New \LaTeX\ release}
  49
  50 This issue of \LaTeX~News marks the first release of a new version of
  51 \LaTeXe\ since the publication of The \LaTeX\ Companion in 2005--2006.
  52
  53 Just in time for \TeX\ Live 2009, this version is a maintenance
  54 release and introduces no new features. A number of small changes have
  55 been made to correct minor bugs in the kernel, slightly extend the Unicode
  56 support, and improve various
  57 aspects of some of the \texttt{tools} packages.
  58
  59 \section{New code repository}
  60
  61 Since the last \LaTeX\ release, the entire code base has been moved
  62 to a public \textsc{svn} repository%
  63 \footnote{\url{http://www.latex-project.org/svnroot/latex2e-public/}}
  64 and the entire build architecture re-written. In fact, it has only
  65 been possible for us to consider a new \LaTeX\ release since earlier
  66 this year when the test suite was finally set up with the new system.
  67 In the process, a bug in the \LaTeX\ picture fonts distributed with
  68 \TeX\ Live was discovered, proving that the
  69 tests are working and are still very valuable.
  70
  71 Now that we can easily generate new packaged versions of the \LaTeXe\
  72 distribution, we expect to be able to roll out bug fixes in a much
  73 more timely manner than over the last few years. New versions should
  74 be distributed yearly with \TeX\ Live. Having said this, the
  75 maintenance of the \LaTeXe\ kernel is slowing down as the bugs become
  76 fewer and more subtle. Remember that we cannot change any of the
  77 underlying architecture of the kernel or any design decisions of the
  78 standard classes because we must preserve backwards compatibility with
  79 legacy documents at all costs.
  80
  81 Even new features cannot be added, because any new documents using
  82 them will not compile in systems (such as journal production engines)
  83 that are generally not updated once they've been proven to work as
  84 necessary.
  85
  86 None of this is to say that we consider \LaTeXe\ to be any less
  87 relevant for document production than in years past: a stable system
  88 is a useful one.
  89 Moreover, the package system continues to provide a flourishing and stable
  90 means
  91 for the development of a wide range of extensions.
  92
  93 \newpage
  94
  95 \section{Babel}
  96
  97 One area of the \LaTeXe\ code base that is still receiving feedback to
  98 be incorporated into the main distribution is the Babel system for
  99 multilingual typesetting.
 100 While the Babel sources have already been added to the \textsc{svn} repository the
 101 integration of the test system for Babel is still outstanding.
 102
 103
 104 \section{The future}
 105
 106 While work on \LaTeXe\ tends to maintenance over active development,
 107 the \LaTeX3 project is
 108 seeing new life. Our goals here are to provide a transition from the
 109 \LaTeXe\ document processing model to one with a more flexible
 110 foundation. Work is continuing in the \textsf{expl3} programming
 111 language and the \textsf{xpackages} for document design. Future
 112 announcements
 113 about \LaTeX3 will be available via the \LaTeX\ Project
 114 website and in TUGboat.
 115
 116 \end{document}