[texhax] Is LaTeX really still being developed?

[Steve Murgaski]

Hi.  Please forgive an impertinent question, but it seems important to ask.

I am a blind computer user, so I especially love the concept of separating a document's content from its typesetting.  With WYSIWYG editors I have to go on faith that they're doing what I want, because I can't see the formatting on-screen.  Only the text of my documents is read aloud to me by my screen reading software.

With LaTeX, the difficulty is that we have to use countless different 'packages' to get the output we want.  It feels very patched together at this point.  So few options are available with the core software that it's necessary to install countless patches on top of it, all written by different people, and not tested together.  The element of faith comes back in that way, and once again I'm never sure what output I'll get.

According to the LaTeX Wikipedia page, LaTeX3 has been in development for nearly twenty years.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX#Versions

Is this development really still taking place, or should LaTeX users just resign themselves to using more and more patches as years go by?
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