Avoiding obsolete classes and packages

At the end of Chapter 11, Developing Large Documents, we talked about the dangers of outdated information. LaTeX exists for decades, and so do tutorials, examples, packages, and templates. Many are totally outdated and some even refer to the old LaTeX standard 2.09, where even document classes didn't exist. We pointed to the definitive guide, l2tabu, that comes to the rescue.

Many problems just occur because of the use of obsolete packages. For example, some that aren't maintained anymore may conflict with newer packages. Often, you just need to find the recommended successor of an obsolete package and use that.

To help you in that matter, here's a short list showing obsolete packages and their respective recommended successors:

Figure 13.5 – Obsolete packages and recommended successors

That's not set in stone. Of course, you may still use the so-called obsolete packages. They may work...