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From:
"Y&Y, Inc." <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 10 Dec 1998 19:42:28 -0500
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At 03:29 PM 98/12/10 , Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

>I think preparation of some question forms for distribution between LaTeX
>users will have a great outcome. We can know which parts are used more,
>and which parts less. This is somehow like taking a vote. So we can know
>which package they use and love, which packages the use and hate,
>which package they haven't heard of, which feature they like to see
>in the future, etc. etc.

I think the problem with this laudable objective is that there is no way to
take a scientific sample of (La)TeX users.  Only a microscopic fraction of
them belongs to any one well defined group --- like people reading
comp.text.tex --- or TUG, or DANTE or GUTenberg or NTG or CyrTUG ---
or reading Notices of the AMS or SIAM say.

And if you perform the survey in comp.text.tex you will get an extremely
biased view of the world!

One outrageous idea would be an access count on packages on CTAN.
Although this would not take into account redistribution at local sites and
would be swamped probably by `mirroring' access and `collectors/pack rats'
(who must simply have everything of any kind whether they need or not)
rather than `normal' end users.

Regards, Berthold.

Y&Y, Inc.  http://www.YandY.com/news.htm  mailto:[log in to unmask]

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