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The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

danielallington.net

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Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#91

Post by gaius »

Derbasti wrote: post #62
taeric wrote: post #12

I had a few things about TeX versus LaTeX. I think the reality is nobody really tries writing TeX. But, ultimately my beef is the straw man that markup is bad because it is harder to read. That a graphical editor is superior because it is more readable. Instead, the advantage is that in the one you are only writing text and you are indicating special instructions to the computer. In the other, you only see what the c…

Also, he implies that LaTeX documents are always typeset in Computer Modern and the plain article template (which is ugly!). XeTeX can use all the same TTF/OTF fonts Word uses. Oh, and let's not forget that Word's math renderer is gross.

You can use LaTeX in Word directly now https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Linear-format-equat...

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#92

Post by rhrezw »

lol...

"By the way, one of the words in the screenshot is not right. It’s a typing error that I deliberately inserted. I know where it is because I put it there, but looking for it is hurting my eyes."

ITT: We compare screenshots of vi with a horrific color scheme to LibreOffice... At least have a modicum of intellectual honesty and get a real LaTeX editor like TeXShop.

"It's like the 1970s all over again, setting my color-scheme to 1970, on my 1970s computer, using software from the 1970s!"

yeah, smash that strawman. smash it right up...

The point of LaTeX is: \citep, \citet, \citealt, \label, \ref, \footnote, $$, \input. During the writing phase, these are essential to co-called "hard" scientists and LibreOffice isn't even like a thing that can be considered as a replacement, writing a hard dissertation with chapters, sections, subsections, hundreds of references, dozens of figures etc. is absolutely impossible without \label, \ref, \include.

For writing a book or something... I generally write in just gedit and then copy-paste into a LaTeX template at the very end. I think it's rather fun to twiddle around with the typesetting. Sorry if you don't.

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#93

Post by jwr »

JelteF wrote: post #68

I've switched from writing latex to writing pandoc markdown. I then convert it to latex and then to pdf. This gets the same result as latex, but is much easier to type for common stuff like, sections, emphasis and verbatim. It also allows you to type "&" symbols anywhere. When I require "advanced" stuff like tables and figures you can easily fallback to inline latex commands within you're markdown. It really is a sig…

I have significant LaTeX experience and yet I do the same. Write in markdown using a good editor (I like Ulysses), then use pandoc to typeset using a custom LaTeX style file.

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#94

Post by merraksh »

Deep down in section 7 is the author's own TLDR:

I think you’ll probably agree that the LaTeX version looks better than the word processor export version. Whether it looks sufficiently better to justify the additional effort is a judgement call that you’ll have to make for yourself.

LaTeX is indeed a typesetting tool, in the sense that the user writes content, LaTeX transforms it into typeset content. I'm not sure why the author goes through the same usual criticisms of LaTeX: 1) it's not for everyone; 2) it's good only for researchers; 3) it has a steep learning curve; etc. These have been known and discussed about for years.

The coder analogy (i.e. the type/compile loop) is close to my heart: I use Emacs both for coding+debugging and for writing content with LaTeX. A strong linking point between the two is TikZ-PGF. I'll consider alternatives to LaTeX when somebody comes up with something as powerful as TikZ-PGF.

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#95

Post by JelteF »

lucb1e wrote: post #80
JelteF wrote: post #68

I've switched from writing latex to writing pandoc markdown. I then convert it to latex and then to pdf. This gets the same result as latex, but is much easier to type for common stuff like, sections, emphasis and verbatim. It also allows you to type "&" symbols anywhere. When I require "advanced" stuff like tables and figures you can easily fallback to inline latex commands within you're markdown. It really is a sig…

> you can easily fallback to inline latex commands within [your] markdown How? This sounds like a very nice middle ground between easy formatting and advanced features.

By just writing it like normal LaTeX. Once you write \somecommand it will interpret it as latex. See the link one of your sibling comments posted for an example: http://tech.lauritz.me/easy-latex-with-markdown-pandoc/

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#96

Post by JelteF »

jwr wrote: post #93
JelteF wrote: post #68

I've switched from writing latex to writing pandoc markdown. I then convert it to latex and then to pdf. This gets the same result as latex, but is much easier to type for common stuff like, sections, emphasis and verbatim. It also allows you to type "&" symbols anywhere. When I require "advanced" stuff like tables and figures you can easily fallback to inline latex commands within you're markdown. It really is a sig…

I have significant LaTeX experience and yet I do the same. Write in markdown using a good editor (I like Ulysses), then use pandoc to typeset using a custom LaTeX style file.

Yeah, I would definitely say I have significant LaTeX experience as well and use a lot of fancy packages. Using pandoc doesn't take away any of the power of LaTeX. It just makes common things easier.

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#97

Post by Ar-Curunir »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #89
moomin wrote: post #71

So, to demonstrate how bad LaTeX is, he picks the single most markup heavy thing you do (barring tables) and compares it to plain text? Plain text, I'll point out, that doesn't format the same way. In practice, there _are_ a bunch of extra steps to get this working in Word, they're just not easy to express in a text document. Then he goes on to show the example of trying to find a spelling error. Ignoring that this j…

> work with multiple people or track the history of a document I often proofread for my friends. I tell them that they must use Track Changes in Word. Is there a better tool that you recommend?

LaTeX + git

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#98

Post by Ar-Curunir »

The author talks about word processors being better because of ease of use, modern features, etc., but you can get these same features if you use software like TexShop or TexStudio or whatever the modern equivalent is. You'll get pleasing spell checking, and you won't have an awful colour scheme like the author uses in emacs.

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#99

Post by ygra »

gaius wrote: post #91
Derbasti wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, he implies that LaTeX documents are always typeset in Computer Modern and the plain article template (which is ugly!). XeTeX can use all the same TTF/OTF fonts Word uses. Oh, and let's not forget that Word's math renderer is gross.

You can use LaTeX in Word directly now https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Linear-format-equat...

For a subset of math. Not for any of the rest of the document.

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#100

Post by ygra »

lmm wrote: post #87
b0rsuk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some good points for reST instead of markdown: * Markdown has many flavors, reST is standarized * reST is extensible * reST is semantic, Markdown is just text. http://ericholscher.com/blog/2016/mar/15/dont-use-markdown-f... reST is marginally harder than markdowns, so is it really worth sticking with MD ?

That margin is huge. I've worked with rST, and it's just not fun to write in the way that Markdown is; even a little friction makes a huge difference to the writing experience.

Asciidoc is a viable alternative, I think.
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