Well, you'll have to install and keep those packages somewhere on your system. And maybe a few months from now after your latex distribution got updated by the system your document suddenly no longer compiles.

What I want is something like npm-like package management for this, where the packages are just kept there next to the document. I don't care if I'll have a package 20 times on my system either, storage hasn't been a concern in many years.

> And maybe a few months from now after your latex distribution got updated by the system your document suddenly no longer compiles.

I'm using LaTeX 2e for 25+ years. This has literally never happened to me. If that's not stability, I don't know what is. LaTeX documents I wrote in my grad days still compile for me. I just checked and it does. I do keep the dependency packages myself in my folder.

Has this issue ever happened to anyone? Why would LaTeX distribution getting updated break my documents? It's still the same latex compiler and the same base styles and packages!

It happened to me because I had to use the templates and document classes provided by my university, which themselves rely on a bunch of packages I wouldn't have installed myself.

My next step was to just try doing the build in containers but I even ran into it there once because I accidentally pulled a newer image...

But it's just anecdotally. Maybe I really was holding it all wrong.

The only instance of a document not working right anymore for me was a really hacked book using an early/beta version of memoir --- there were (documented) breaking changes for the final release --- updated to match the new macro calls and it was back to working in short order.

> I'm using LaTeX 2e for 25+ years

it gets annoying when you use LaTeX once a year for 25 years.

> when you use LaTeX once a year for 25 years

That's me.

Is there any specific issue you face which stops you from compiling old files?

As I mentioned in my other comment, my grad school days documents are still compiling fine.

If you still use LaTeX 2e and you've got all the dependency packages with you, pdflatex should Just Work. right? I can't remember any major change that would outright break your compilation. And I haven't seen such issue too myself. So I genuinely want to know what specific issues you or others face that wouldn't even let you compile your document.

Not trying to argue that this happens regularly, but some recent (last 6 months or so) minted update contained breaking changes.

Maybe running Latex in a container would meet your requirements?

There's a package for that:

https://ctan.org/pkg/collect?lang=en

Write a Nix expression to compile your document. That way you can be sure it keeps working. I did this long ago for my PhD thesis and other papers.

> If one just chooses a reasonable documentclass and if need be a few packages suited to the requirements of one's document, then it all "just works" with (mostly) sensible defaults and minimal configuration.

Ironically, very similar to the story with modern C++. If you use a limited subset it can "just work" but only if you are disciplined and don't have to mix in legacy code that's pre-C++11.

look c++99 was a very cromulent c++ as well. oh lol just like the LaTeX story