On Wed, Sep 08, 2010 at 05:32:56AM -0700, Michiel Kamermans wrote: > Hi Philip, > > >I think you will find that the charge for the Companions (rather > >like the charge for the TeXbook itself) goes to offset the > >expenses of those developing LaTeX (resp. TeX) rather than lining > >anyone' pocket ... > > I never claimed it lined anyone's pockets, or that charging money > for it is terrible, but it's an authorative work that should have > existed as "official" documentation for LaTeX in the first place, > like any good product comes with a good manual. Just having a noble > cause for the proceeds is not, on its own, enough to sell something. > The typical person will justify paying for a book based on how > useful the book is, and that's the tricky part: if you've never > touched TeX before, there is no way for you to appreciate how hard > the work was that others put in developing and doucmenting it. It's > just another technology. You just see a loose collection of packages > and an engine that people claim are free and fantastic, and "not as > hard as people make it sound", but then you discover that as you're > trying to use it, it actually IS that hard, and you need a $50 book > just to explain what a normal person expects is already explained in > the help files. Which don't exist =) > > Of course, you can spend days trawling the internet for free > snippets that explain the specific problem you're having, and you > can post on a newsgroup or a mailing list and get help that way, but > that shouldn't have to be a first recourse, but more of a fallback > approach when the documentation doesn't cover what you want to do. > And, when you're new to LaTeX, anything you're trying to do should > be in the documentation, because you're not likely to do something a > large number of people didn't try to do before you. > > Personally, I'm a big fan of the "free digital form and for-monies > book form" idea that Bruce Eckel more popular -- I stick to that > model myself for my own book, too -- where, if the material is > useful, people buy the book anyway because it's a good book to have. > Of course if others don't subscribe to that philosophy, no problem. > But free digital documentation makes everyone's lives easier I think > =)
I can't say any better, the lack of free, authoritative documentation has bugged me since the first day I used TeX, I couldn't even buy the books by then since no local book store have such titles (online book stores were not an option). I actually got my hand on a copy of the TeXbook for the first time just few weeks ago. Regards, Khaled -- Khaled Hosny Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team Free font developer -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex