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Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

blog.jez.io

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Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#21

Post by xiaq »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #7

Markdown can do quite a lot, but it doesn't have any way to write mathematical formulae. Since that's 90% of why I use LaTeX in most cases it seems silly to recommend Markdown. LaTeX has a superset of features, and is well suited to what it does properly (typesetting). Markdown is quick and easy to use, so it's good for blog posts.

Pandoc's tex_math_dollars, tex_math_single_backslash and raw TeX mode makes it possible to fallback to TeX whenever you need: https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#math-input

A Markdown -> LaTeX -> pdf pipeline was how I wrote all of my algorithm assignments in college. I wrote things like:

    * **Basis**. Prove for $n = 0$...

    * **Induction**. If \mathcal{G} is a graph ...

      \begin{equation}
        ...
      \end{equation}

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#22

Post by titanix2 »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #7

Markdown can do quite a lot, but it doesn't have any way to write mathematical formulae. Since that's 90% of why I use LaTeX in most cases it seems silly to recommend Markdown. LaTeX has a superset of features, and is well suited to what it does properly (typesetting). Markdown is quick and easy to use, so it's good for blog posts.

From my (limited) experience of writing a documentation page for a library I made, Markdown is pretty limited (speaking of CommonMark here). Even basic things like table or image need HTML to be done. The gain in syntax is lost on the coherence side as the document mixes two languages, and an additional step of processing the document is required to transform it in full HTML.

It have it use cases but writing long and complex documents is not one of them.

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#23

Post by seanmcdirmid »

da_chicken wrote: post #20
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #7

Markdown can do quite a lot, but it doesn't have any way to write mathematical formulae. Since that's 90% of why I use LaTeX in most cases it seems silly to recommend Markdown. LaTeX has a superset of features, and is well suited to what it does properly (typesetting). Markdown is quick and easy to use, so it's good for blog posts.

My problem with LaTeX is that a ton of programmers think it's a good idea to use LaTeX instead of, say, Word or Writer or plain text wrapped at 80 characters or a Wiki for things like process or project documentation. Programmers love to use LaTeX, because they get to feel like they're doing something exciting like writing a computer program when what they're actually doing something incredibly boring like writing do…

Not many go into LaTeX "loving it". Many of us try Word first, and are just unhappy with its output. If you need something that is well typeset and don't want to spend a few $10k on professional typesetting software, LaTeX fits the bill well. Everything else about LaTeX is a pain, not a joy.

Is a lot of documentation written in LaTeX? I would never use it for that. Paper that is going to be submitted to a conference? Sure! Blogpost? No, documentation that is read only online...also probably not. But I don't think I would use Word for that either, Word is a pain if you need something other than very standard formatting.

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#24

Post by busterarm »

titanix2 wrote: post #22
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #7

Markdown can do quite a lot, but it doesn't have any way to write mathematical formulae. Since that's 90% of why I use LaTeX in most cases it seems silly to recommend Markdown. LaTeX has a superset of features, and is well suited to what it does properly (typesetting). Markdown is quick and easy to use, so it's good for blog posts.

From my (limited) experience of writing a documentation page for a library I made, Markdown is pretty limited (speaking of CommonMark here). Even basic things like table or image need HTML to be done. The gain in syntax is lost on the coherence side as the document mixes two languages, and an additional step of processing the document is required to transform it in full HTML. It have it use cases but writing long and…

Kramdown is far and away the best Markdown implementation at the moment. It doesn't have the problems you describe (but does others).

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#25

Post by OberstKrueger »

gervase wrote: post #2

I don't think most people are reaching for LaTeX to write to-do lists or other ephemeral notes (which can be pretty effectively written just in .txt), but because they'll need some feature that is simple in LaTeX but difficult or impossible elsewhere. However, I doubt anyone who argue with a modified premise of "Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX, when writing blog posts." But that wouldn't produce as many clicks, either.

Is that not what it says? The last sentence of the first paragraph is "By reaching first for Markdown, then for LaTeX when necessary, writing is easier and more enjoyable", which would be that premise but applied to any situation where LaTeX is overdoing things.

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#26

Post by jez »

Author here! I'd like to take a second to point out that the audience I had in mind when writing this article was mostly my fellow classmates in college. In school we were hastily introduced to LaTeX freshman year and were required to typeset our homeworks before submission.

The point of the article isn't "you should never use LaTeX" but rather "hey, there's this other, simpler tool that you might like better!" plus some starter templates to make the transition easier.

Importantly, I encourage everyone to use the tools that they feel most comfortable using!

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#27

Post by jacobolus »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #23
da_chicken wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with LaTeX is that a ton of programmers think it's a good idea to use LaTeX instead of, say, Word or Writer or plain text wrapped at 80 characters or a Wiki for things like process or project documentation. Programmers love to use LaTeX, because they get to feel like they're doing something exciting like writing a computer program when what they're actually doing something incredibly boring like writing do…

Not many go into LaTeX "loving it". Many of us try Word first, and are just unhappy with its output. If you need something that is well typeset and don't want to spend a few $10k on professional typesetting software, LaTeX fits the bill well. Everything else about LaTeX is a pain, not a joy. Is a lot of documentation written in LaTeX? I would never use it for that. Paper that is going to be submitted to a conference?…

The current version of Adobe InDesign costs $20/month on subscription. Used copies of older versions can be found for relatively cheap.

I would advise anyone who values their time against using LaTeX for any document that doesn’t primarily consist of mathematical formulas.

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#28

Post by hueving »

da_chicken wrote: post #20
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #7

Markdown can do quite a lot, but it doesn't have any way to write mathematical formulae. Since that's 90% of why I use LaTeX in most cases it seems silly to recommend Markdown. LaTeX has a superset of features, and is well suited to what it does properly (typesetting). Markdown is quick and easy to use, so it's good for blog posts.

My problem with LaTeX is that a ton of programmers think it's a good idea to use LaTeX instead of, say, Word or Writer or plain text wrapped at 80 characters or a Wiki for things like process or project documentation. Programmers love to use LaTeX, because they get to feel like they're doing something exciting like writing a computer program when what they're actually doing something incredibly boring like writing do…

>Documentation is meant to be read by everyone, not make you feel good about being forced to write it.

I think you missed the point you were trying to make here because nobody has any difficulty reading the PDFs rendered from latex.

Re: Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX

#29

Post by Ajedi32 »

titanix2 wrote: post #22
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #7

Markdown can do quite a lot, but it doesn't have any way to write mathematical formulae. Since that's 90% of why I use LaTeX in most cases it seems silly to recommend Markdown. LaTeX has a superset of features, and is well suited to what it does properly (typesetting). Markdown is quick and easy to use, so it's good for blog posts.

From my (limited) experience of writing a documentation page for a library I made, Markdown is pretty limited (speaking of CommonMark here). Even basic things like table or image need HTML to be done. The gain in syntax is lost on the coherence side as the document mixes two languages, and an additional step of processing the document is required to transform it in full HTML. It have it use cases but writing long and…

CommonMark _does_ support images: http://spec.commonmark.org/0.27/#images

Some other, non-standard variants of Markdown also handle tables via a syntax which resembles ASCII art. And while that format does do an excellent job of adhering to Markdown's ethos of remaining readable in plain text; I usually prefer to use HTML fallback anyway as it's easier to maintain.

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