[task #15694] pdflatex: why allow write18 with -shell-escape?

[Mohammad Akhlaghi]

Update of task #15694 (project reproduce):

        Percent Complete:                      0% => 100%                   
             Open/Closed:                    Open => Closed                 

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Follow-up Comment #1:

This is needed by PGFPlots when it wants create figures as separate separate
PDFs. You can see two such figures in the default Maneage branch in 'tex/tikz'
directory.

Of course, if someone doesn't use PGFPlots, they can remove this option
manually. But since the default branch currently uses this feature, before
moving it we have to see if we should remove it from the default branch.

I personally think that promoting PGFPlots as a visualization tool is a good
thing for reproducibility and avoiding complexity because 1) it build plots
within LaTeX (not needing any special dependencies, unlike Matplotlib for
example!) 2) Because the raw data/table has to be given to PGFPlots to draw
the plot at the same time it builds the final PDF, it encourages people to
keep the actual data before making the plots.

But of course, if someone wants to use another plotting system they can just
build the plot before building the paper, and give the plot's PDF to LaTeX.
Its up to them and we don't force it. 

However, for those that are just starting, or don't have any special
preference, I think that encouraging them to use PGFPlots   (implemented in
the demo) is a good step forward for encouraging more robust and reliable
tools, even when they aren't using Maneage. 

What do you think? If you agree, please close the issue ;-).

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