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As l2tabu already hasn't been updated in 6 years, is there any other place to get to know

  1. which packages became obsolete / superseded by which ones / have been improved by which ones?
  2. which packages are currently "recommended" for task / area X?

Thanks a lot!

Suuuehgi
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    What's the problem about it not having been updated in 6 years? Does it need an update? – MaestroGlanz Apr 28 '22 at 21:00
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    mathtools did not supersede amsmath. It extends it with very useful additions and corrections. – TeXnician Apr 28 '22 at 21:05
  • why do you think there should be such a list? latex has millions of users and thousands of them have produced publicly available packages. No one ranks these. If someone writes an improved or just different package, it does not mean that the maintainer of the original package stops maintaining that, or even knows about the new one, it just means a user has a choice of packages. – David Carlisle Apr 29 '22 at 07:25
  • @DavidCarlisle You basically answered your own question: It's the complete lack of oversight. If I maintain or just use a package and an improved one comes into light, I would like to know about it. E.g. (@TeXnician) if mathtools corrects amsmath there is zero reason for me to continue using amsmath (but to compile old documents I don't want to touch). @MaestroGlanz The key point here is: I don't know! Probably. That's what l2tabu is about. The package landscape develops. – Suuuehgi Apr 29 '22 at 08:48
  • @Suuuehgi would you ask that about perl or python or C programs? If you write a program in python and somewhere on the internet someone writes a program with overlapping functionality, would you expect some third party to assess the two programs and declare one superior and tell the mainainer of the inferior one that they should stop mainaining it? – David Carlisle Apr 29 '22 at 08:51
  • @DavidCarlisle 1 In my humble view, the e.g. Python landscape (1) is way more centralized (numpy, scipy and alike) and (2) there is no such thing as "I improve my package by creating a new one" / the backward-compatibility desire that's a big part of the mess. 2 (1) That's what happening and happening more visible since the user-bases are way larger. (2) That's his/her decision. – Suuuehgi Apr 29 '22 at 09:00
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    lots of packages have not been updated in 6 years so that is not surprising (I have packages that have not been updated in 25 years, but are maintained). There are newer array packages (nicemarix and tabularray for example) but their arrival is not the reason for deprecating tabu. tabu does not work with current latex and gives errors if used, so the issues with it are completly unrelated to successor packages, you need to stop using it even if no newer packages were available. But that is a specific issue about one broken package not a general feature of latex package distribution – David Carlisle Apr 29 '22 at 09:01
  • @TeXnician I incorporated your hint into the question. :) @DavidCarlisle Maybe I haven't been clear enough in my question but I generally don't have any issues with packages that are not updated for 25 years and are still up-to-date. Thank you for the pointer to nicematrix! ;) – Suuuehgi Apr 29 '22 at 09:29
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    I agree that I cringe a bit when I see some LaTeX tutorials giving advice that have been obsolete for 15 years, but as other pointed out there isn't any governing body deciding everything about packages. However, personally, every 5 years or so, I look up every package I use on CTAN. If there is a mention that a package has been superceded, its replacement is usually indicated so I can update my class file accordingly. – Miyase Apr 29 '22 at 09:33

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Probably the nearest one gets to an official source is The LaTeX Companion (TLC), where Frank and others try to give a sense of the current landscape. That's a serious effort, and TLC2 is now quite long-in-the-tooth. Luckily, TLC3 is on the horizon and will I suspect give guidance on a lot of this.

Joseph Wright
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