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Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document

latex.now.sh

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Re: Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document

#11

Post by mastry »

diablo1 wrote: post #7
throwlaplace wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are plenty of people that appreciate "dry academic papers" - they're called academics. there are also plenty of blogs written by academic types that aim for minimalism.

Yeah but it's very edge-casey and not everyone's an academic so the target audience must be very small. Otherwise why write the CSS for it. If I wanted to write a CSS library I would be aiming for a large audience (but that's just me; always trying to have maximum impact)

I don’t see anything wrong about targeting a small audience...or doing something just because you enjoy it.

Re: Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document

#12

Post by atrettel »

jjice wrote: post #6

I hated the look of LaTeX documents when I first started university, especially the font. I don't know what happened, but I eventually fell in love Computer Modern. Something about it just looks great. Maybe it's just Stockholm Syndrome.

I think a lot of people go through a life cycle of Computer Modern. I originally was indifferent, but once I learned LaTeX I used it since it was the default and it signaled to people that I knew LaTeX. Now I prefer Utopia/Fourier instead. Computer Modern seems to "thin", in my opinion, but I still use it on occasion. Some colleagues of mine really love it, though.

I can see why some people like it since it's the default font for a lot of technical documents and seeing it often signifies a certain level of "quality". The documents generally look better than Word documents, for example. Moreover, if an author took the time to learn LaTeX, it is easy to assume that they know what they are talking about. This is a form of "honor by association" (opposite of guilt by association fallacy).

Relevant XKCD:

https://xkcd.com/1301/

Re: Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document

#13

Post by KKPMW »

diablo1 wrote: post #2

What so it just styles your site to look like a dry academic paper? What use case does this have? I imagine someone out there really needs this and the target audience is small.

I don't know about everyone but for me there is this weird effect style has on how serious I think the text is.

When I read something written in the style of a medium post I sub-consciously think of the material as being shallow. While reading this type of LaTeX style I would start taking it more seriously. But the texts with most serious look to me are non-formatted pages, like the ones on danluu.com or even plain text posts like this one: http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/bocode/t/transint.html

Re: Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document

#14

Post by kleiba »

diablo1 wrote: post #2

What so it just styles your site to look like a dry academic paper? What use case does this have? I imagine someone out there really needs this and the target audience is small.

But don't most academic papers actually look very different from this? Usually, conferences and journals provide style files that look very different from this website.

I see out-of-the-box latex looks mostly in shorter student reports - although even there, you often get more modern looking styles.

Re: Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document

#17

Post by throwlaplace »

diablo1 wrote: post #7
throwlaplace wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are plenty of people that appreciate "dry academic papers" - they're called academics. there are also plenty of blogs written by academic types that aim for minimalism.

Yeah but it's very edge-casey and not everyone's an academic so the target audience must be very small. Otherwise why write the CSS for it. If I wanted to write a CSS library I would be aiming for a large audience (but that's just me; always trying to have maximum impact)

lol what kind of person doubles down on a mistake/error/bias after being shown that error? do you really want me to now go and show you how many academics there are that publish papers using latex? or even publish papers in latex and publish to blogs? you probably will still claim for some reason that your initial guess was correct.

just take your L and move on.

Re: Show HN: LaTeX.css – Make your website look like a LaTeX document

#19

Post by thanksforfish »

diablo1 wrote: post #7
throwlaplace wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are plenty of people that appreciate "dry academic papers" - they're called academics. there are also plenty of blogs written by academic types that aim for minimalism.

Yeah but it's very edge-casey and not everyone's an academic so the target audience must be very small. Otherwise why write the CSS for it. If I wanted to write a CSS library I would be aiming for a large audience (but that's just me; always trying to have maximum impact)

Did you have any audiences in mind? Were you thinking a one size fits all or just a larger niche?

Success of CSS themes depends a bit on fashion, so there's some risk that a popular theme will implode by getting too popular and then feel bland, overused. Or shifts in preferred styles making the theme look dated.

The LaTeX approach is sort of an anti-style. It's a uniform. I'd bet that this CSS theme will send the same message (I am an academic, and this content is for academics) for many years. A uniform should actually gain popularity as its used. Although you are correct that the reach of this theme may be limited to just academics who create websites.

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