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As we know there are 6000 packages in CTAN. but when LaTeX3 is released, these packages will be null?

Mamoun Mohammed
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    latex3 is already there and most packages seem to work fine with it, see https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/572177/2388 – Ulrike Fischer Mar 07 '21 at 18:46
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    Please provide a couple of examples of packages you're concerned about. For sure, quite a few of the 4000+ packages on the CTAN are obsolete, deprecated, haven't been updated in two decades or more, and often have much better alternatives. (E.g., instead of \usepackage{ngerman}, one ought to use \usepackage[ngerman]{babel}.) Are you advocating that LaTeX3 should make some kind of special effort to somehow bring such package back to life? Please advise. – Mico Mar 07 '21 at 18:53
  • @Mico , I have read a sentence I don’t know where, it says the LaTeX3 will be with a few new packages. – Mamoun Mohammed Mar 07 '21 at 19:01
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    @MamounMohammed that is outdated information then. There was a change in course by the LaTeX-team some time ago to no longer pursue the effort of implementing a LaTeX3 format (which was already there in the early 90s), but instead modernize and expand LaTeX2e to cover recent requests, such as accessible documents. – Skillmon Mar 07 '21 at 19:08
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    IMHO, not all 4000 packages are related to LaTeX. For example, I released many packages to CTAN and they have nothing to do with LaTeX. – wipet Mar 07 '21 at 19:52
  • @wipet , so your packages for what? -ConTeXt, for example?- – Mamoun Mohammed Mar 07 '21 at 20:15
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    Some package/modules are for Plain TeX or ConTeXt. Some other are generic and work across formats (e.g. expex and pgf work in LaTeX, Plain and, although imperfectly, in ConTeXt). –  Mar 07 '21 at 20:19
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    @MamounMohammed For plain TeX. And the last one is a modern standalone format based on pain TeX, something like ConTeXt, but much more "lightened". – wipet Mar 07 '21 at 20:20
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    @wipet I took '4000' as emphasising 'a lot of packages' :) – Joseph Wright Mar 08 '21 at 10:14

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As detailed in https://www.latex-project.org/latex3/, the original idea of a stand-along LaTeX3 format has been replaced with an approach in which new functionality is added to LaTeX2e. This reflects the fact that LaTeX2e is very widely used and supported by a vast array of third-party packages. An entirely new format would not be able to use them and would risk being essentially irrelevant to day-to-day LaTeX users. As such, the team anticipate that the vast majority of packages will continue to work. There will in some cases need to be adjustment, and there will be older packages in particular that become obsolete as a result. However, there will not be a 'mass cull'.

Joseph Wright
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  • And one should perhaps note (in a fatalist manner) that it is actually good that some of the older, unmaintained packages become incompatible (as they essentially were already incompatible, but without producing hard errors). – Skillmon Mar 07 '21 at 19:15
  • @Skillmon Sure, there is a time to move on from older methods – Joseph Wright Mar 07 '21 at 19:18
  • (Nitpick?) Shouldn't it be "stand-alone"? – user202729 Nov 05 '21 at 15:27