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

[Rasmus <rasmus@gmx.us>]

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).

>>> - 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.

On conflicts.

For me clashes mainly happen between macros defined multiple times,
e.g. compare \usepackage{amsmath, wasysym} and \usepackage{wasysym,
amsmath}.

Exotic math packages, cross-reference packages, algorithm packages
seem to be potential sources, but none should conflict with amsmath.
There may be conlficts with hyperref, if anything.

Packages that are known to cause trouble are usually known.  Beside
stackoverflow here's an interesting list

        http://www.macfreek.nl/memory/LaTeX_package_conflicts

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

–Rasmus

--
This is the kind of tedious nonsense up with which I will not put