Re: [export] Should sidewaystable option automatically add rotating package?

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

On 09/17/13 03:26 AM, Rasmus wrote:
> Hi Carsten,
>
> Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> Note: I should be obvious that I prefer to load as little stuff be
>>> default as possible.  That is: I'm biased, but it's OK when everyone
>>> knows.
>>
>> Yes.  Of course the cleanest solution would be to load as little
>> as possible.  But convenience and backward compatibility are
>> also a concern which I would like to consider.
>
> I agree.  And, as said, people who want a 'clean' solution (to his or
> her mind) can easily get that.  So convenience is certainly something
> that should be considered!
>
>>>> - to add the rotating package
>>>> - do document that the tabu package is needed when specifying tabu
>>>
>>> Note the package loading order might matter.
>>
>> Yes, I am aware of this.  Can you be specific for this case?  I guess
>> rotating has no load sequence issues.
>
> I doubt rotating causes issues as it provides its own environments
> cf. section 2.2 of its manual.  I didn't find any reports on the
> Internets.
>
>> Does tabu have such issues [of conflicting with other packages]?
>> With which packages (what you know)
>
> I don't think tabu causes any problems.  It states it doesn't rewrite
> any existing code (as e.g. tabularx does) cf. p. 1.
>
> Perhaps, Eric Abrahamsen (Cc'ed) has more experience with tabu
> (according to the log Eric added tabu support).
>
> Unfortunately, I haven't moved to tabu yet.  Supposedly, it can
> replace most other tabular packages including longtable and it's
> compatible with many other packages cf. p. 9 of its manual (but that's
> another story).

I'm not an expert, but I haven't read about or experienced any
particular clashes, so I've made this my standard table package. I'd
feel a little weird about enforcing that on most users, though...

>>>> - do document that amsmath in needed when generating a matrix
>>>
>>> and subscripts.  And sometimes math (e.g. align).
>>
>> amsmath is (edited) in the defualt list, patch by you IIRC.  So we
>> actually do not have to say something about this in the manual.
>
> No.
>
>>>> The reasoning:
>>>>
>>>> - wrapfig and longtable have been in there for a long time, we want to
>>>> avoid breaking existing files whenever possible
>>>
>>> Assuming a mechanism exists that can detect when tabu is to be loaded
>>> why only apply it there and not to the other optional packages?
>>
>> Because any automatic mechanism may cause problems with load sequence,
>> so packages that are problematic in this way should require user attention.
>> Hmm, have I just argued agains longtbl by saying this?
>
> If we are (i) aware of no known problems with a package and (ii) we
> assume that loading package X–Z have little impact on compilation time
> is it then not more rational to just add them as a default package? 
>
> While automatic package handling is very exciting it could go awry.

[...]

I'm not too in favor of automatic package detection. Unless it works
nearly perfectly, it just seems like trading one kind of user irritation
for another.

Personally, I _always_ blast the default packages and load my own stuff.

One potential middle ground would be providing defaults "sets": for
instance LATEX_MATH_DEFAULTS (or whatever), that provided a couple
choices for math-related package suites that are known to work well
together.

Meh, maybe not.

> Fixes are usually available.  For instance, I use a filter to disable
> fontenc/inputenc if pdflatex is not used (it breaks xelatex for me).

If anything was going to be automatically detected and handled, it seems
like it should be this. This is one of the main reasons I gave up trying
to use the defaults at all.

Not too helpful, I know...

E