111–120 of 127 posts
Could have been "Why is C still used? What are some good, modern alternatives?" heck this works too "Why is HTTP still used? What are some good, modern alternatives?" Because, sometimes, someone gets something right and a lot of people build some exceptional infrastructure around it and then it lasts.
HTTP is being replaced. http://www.chromium.org/spdy
The fact that you can install a program called TeX on your computer is marginally irrelevant.
The question you want to ask is: after Knuth has solved to the best of his ability the general problem of computer typesetting, why hasn't anyone bridged his theory with the front-ends that everyone uses? My take is: the shiny tools that exist were good enough for most people to toy with.
Independent of the elegant typesetting it produces, TeX contains well-designed notation for mathematics, reflecting the algorithmic bent of its author, Don Knuth. Mathematics doesn't change as frequently as desktop publishing, so it's a good bet that the TeX (e.g. $\int_0^1 \tau \, d\tau$) is going to be around as long as people talk math online. That said, I think there are much easier-to-use and less error-prone de…
TeX, for me, tends to be articles, reports, and documents that I expect to use the same format again and again (or the format is provided, such as from IEEE).
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I've had it crash repeatedly, but it remains the best editor I've ever called WYSIWYG, whether or not that's accurate.
From the first paragraph of http://www.lyx.org/ : > LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents (WYSIWYM) and not simply their appearance (WYSIWYG).
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I've had it crash repeatedly, but it remains the best editor I've ever called WYSIWYG, whether or not that's accurate.
From the first paragraph of http://www.lyx.org/ : > LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents (WYSIWYM) and not simply their appearance (WYSIWYG).
I believe that description is aimed at former MS Word users who don't even know the WYM/G distinction exists, not as a definitive membership claim by LyX.
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I would disagree that the base is wonderful and it's the editors that are bad. At least in LaTeX there are a multitude of packages to do any given thing, all with varying levels of completeness, and most with incompatibilities between them. Leaky abstractions abound, and the way the macro language works probably makes this easier. The features you mention would be needed to put it in front of less geeky users but are…
>I would disagree that the base is wonderful and it's the editors that are bad OK. (As I said elsewhere...) When I said the language was fine, I meant that the language as a means for the user expressing an idea was fine, not that there aren't problems at a deeper level with the language. I'm a physicists, not a programmer. Nevertheless, the limitations of the given language could be massively ameliorated with a powe…
I agree that those things should be easy to find. What I meant is that for the current user base those are nice to have but not essential. I have long since accumulated enough examples of the type of documents I write that I can quickly do the basic things just by copying them from somewhere else. I assume that people that write scientific articles already have working examples of two columns, sub figures and appendices that they just copy when they do a new article.
If you wanted to make LaTeX much more widely use then you'd need all the goodies you mentioned. But to even make those possible the environment under them needs to be much more consistent and robust than it is now. Something like LyX could work well if manual intervention in the typesetting wasn't so needed.
The reason TeX is still used is because it is open source and beautiful, because it is the best at handling mathematical notation, and because of its inertial dominance in math and the hard sciences in Academia. The reason TeX has so, so many fixable problems after 30 years is because there is no financial incentive for anyone to fix it. The answer is not to find a TeX alternative. This will not be possible in Academ…
The reason TeX is still used is because it is open source and beautiful, because it is the best at handling mathematical notation, and because of its inertial dominance in math and the hard sciences in Academia. The reason TeX has so, so many fixable problems after 30 years is because there is no financial incentive for anyone to fix it. The answer is not to find a TeX alternative. This will not be possible in Academ…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I would disagree that the base is wonderful and it's the editors that are bad OK. (As I said elsewhere...) When I said the language was fine, I meant that the language as a means for the user expressing an idea was fine, not that there aren't problems at a deeper level with the language. I'm a physicists, not a programmer. Nevertheless, the limitations of the given language could be massively ameliorated with a powe…
>There's no reason I should have to go on the internet to find out how to use columns. Or sub figures. Or appendices. It should just work. >I'm not a less-geeky user who needs to be coddled (unless by "less geeky" you mean 99.99% of users). I just want to write up my research, and I don't want to have to think about typesetting theory. I agree that those things should be easy to find. What I meant is that for the cur…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There's no reason I should have to go on the internet to find out how to use columns. Or sub figures. Or appendices. It should just work. >I'm not a less-geeky user who needs to be coddled (unless by "less geeky" you mean 99.99% of users). I just want to write up my research, and I don't want to have to think about typesetting theory. I agree that those things should be easy to find. What I meant is that for the cur…
I guess we're disagreeing about what's essential. At this point, I prize robustness more than power. I'd be pretty happy if LaTeX would just work smoothly. Additional capabilities would be gravy.