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Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

monsterwriter.com

21–30 of 38 posts

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#21
post #2

I appreciate the idea. But I would advise any and every student against risking their academic work product on a small webservice because the long term economic viability of such services tends to be low. So the risk of all a student's work disappearing overnight far outweighs the benefits because the tool is not going to cut a five year program into six months. Good luck.

This is an argument against any new software for students.

My comment expresses my opinion about the specific risks for graduate students considering the likelihood of economic viability of the idea.

The risk is a catastrophic event that might derail an academic career beyond recovery.

The economic viability assessment is based on the normal costs of doing all the things a company needs to do to stay in business relative to the unit economics, the size of the market, and the availability of alternatives with established track records.

If this was a product targeted at freshman students my take would be different. The stakes are much much lower for users; the market is much much bigger; and the norms of academic practice are far more fluid.

Grad school is not simply an extended undergrad…at least when theses and dissertations are required. People expect undergraduates to screw up. Part of graduate school is the expectation of maturity.

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LaTeX was much easier with Overleaf for my PhD thesis. I still recommend that for friends starting a thesis or a book project. I even used it for recent book project with a friend. As you noted, one needs a lot of fine tuning to meet publication rules & guidelines. Compared to a local LaTeX editor or Overleaf, this looks too generic to meet the needs I've had in the past. Sure, LaTeX can require a lot of tinkering, b…

I would suggest Typst nowadays. Much easier to get into imo. Unfortunately though it doesn't have backwards compatibility for LaTeXs math notation.

I wouldn’t, solely because it’s still in version 0.X - for any long-term, important project (e.g., PhD dissertation) I’d recommend LaTeX due to A) it’s mature and B) many universities provide LaTeX templates.

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#23
Where are the customer testimonials or the samples to play with?

There also needs to be an 'about' page, to explain what the motivation is.

Given the AI invasion, isn't this a product category that has to either provide AI or have a stance against it?

Some work needs to go into how this is marketed and sold. Compare with how a JetBrains IDE is sold, plus what the pricing is.

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#26
post #2

I appreciate the idea. But I would advise any and every student against risking their academic work product on a small webservice because the long term economic viability of such services tends to be low. So the risk of all a student's work disappearing overnight far outweighs the benefits because the tool is not going to cut a five year program into six months. Good luck.

There’s a latex editor for the Mac with real-time typesetting (I forget the name) that I used very early on for fairly high-value paper submissions. (not my dissertation - that’s long in the past)

I trusted it because (a) I had a downloaded copy of the app on my machine, and (b) I had the latex files locally, and could go back to emacs if necessary. For the short term, at least, I was insulated from failure of the company.

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#27
I need a platform for legalese. Drafting documents. I do hope AI scribe agent emerges soon tho. "Hey scribus, write me a mark down document and provide links for the usual popular file formats, docx, pdf, Json. Extract metadata from context, format headers and footers and other using statutory instrument standard format. I will dictate content and you research, verify and amplify in my usual writing style"

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#28
post #14

There's zero chance in any universe that I would write my thesis in a cloud app. I would prefer pure notepad on windows 3.1 if that were the alternative.

My but what a pointlessly shit answer to a polite show and tell.. The reputation of this site for arrogant snark at such things is fully deserved.

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#29
My two cents:

1. Clean up the formatting of the page a bit, it seems a bit choppy along the edges, especially for the visuals (at least as viewed on a laptop).

2. Refine the content for the selling points about what it offers. It's grammatically awkward and wooden. Neither is a good idea in sales copy, especially in a service designed to help writers.

Other than that, looks pretty good, and good luck.

Re: Show HN: I've build a platform for writing technical/scientific documents

#30
post #14

There's zero chance in any universe that I would write my thesis in a cloud app. I would prefer pure notepad on windows 3.1 if that were the alternative.

My but what a pointlessly shit answer to a polite show and tell.. The reputation of this site for arrogant snark at such things is fully deserved.

Thank you for your consideration on this matter.
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