Am 16.03.2018 um 09:56 schrieb Pavel Sanda:
Uwe Stöhr wrote:
So my plan is to use the 2.3.0 installer also as repair kit.
Yes, this was kind of clear and pretty much everyone on this list thinks that
we should not do such things hiddenly without advertising.
This is not hidden. As you have seen, I already pop up a dialog telling
that the installer will now upgrade your package handling system. This
dialog is necessary because depending on when users upgraded their
MiKTeX the last time, this can take up to 5 minutes. I have to pop up
this dialog because if users would close the installer meanwhile they
surely end up with a broken MiKTeX.
Scott made his point that the package upgrade could lead to a state
where a fresh package version from CTAN has a regression bug. My point
is, yes this can happen, but then all TeX users are affected and such
bugs are fixed very quickly.
I also proposed several times now to add an info to the release
announcement for experienced users how they can prevent the package
upgrade if they really want this and that the consequence is that they
might sooner or later break their MiKTeX. If this happens they can use
the 2.3.0 installer.
Maybe I missed this but I haven't seen a reply to my proposal yet.
Generally speaking - apart from your mom, which might indeed be better served
without additional info, there is also crowd of people who go mad when software
contain hidden "kits" which were nowhere mentioned.
Sure, but people like my mother are the average users in my experience.
They are lost with these kind of additional info because under Windows
there is no concept of package handling and dependencies. This concept
is simply unknown for most users.
I never forgot the experienced users. The installer already provides
several options they can use. Just check it out to see what you can do.
For this particular case, see my proposal above. With this the experts
know what to do.
In general, experts always find a way to resolve problems. They can also
write a mail to our lists to get help. Average users would be lost. You
can for example not expect anybody in my family to know how a mailing
list or a bug tracker works. The LyX developers working at a university
can for example ask their students (if they are not IT students) if they
ever used a mailing list or bugtracker. If even some students don't use
or know it, you can imagine the knowledge of average users. In my
classes (I once gave introduction lessons to LyX), not even a quarter
knew about bug trackers.
regards Uwe
