I would be much more likely to believe the author if they didn't embed multiple videos in their screed against multimedia.
You can provide a plaintext experience if you think it's better, but clearly you don't.
Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
81–90 of 154 posts
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#82I mainly want to communicate by text
The web is no longer about communicating, especially the parts the author complains about (framework-driven apps, JavaScript, social networks, etc). It's about working, creating, and broadcasting to large groups. That's not necessarily a bad thing (although if you write a blog no doubt it feels a bit bad having to fight for attention with tweets and stuff).
The very simple fact is that the web has changed. It's not a place where people publish text articles for their audience to read any more. It's a distribution platform for users to create things with rich, diverse apps. There are a ton of problems with it (privacy, security, ownership, sharing, etc), but none of them will be fixed by moving to a different technology. The problems the web has are people problems, not tech problems.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#83Unless you're the kind of person to print out physical copies of web pages (and I suspect OP may be one of these people), there's no reason to use LaTeX.
Pagination is for paper, not screens. Thus, PDFs, LaTex, and companions, have no place on the Web. [I wrote about this recently here.](https://jonreeve.com/2021/05/stop-making-pdfs/)
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have the complete opposite experience. I used word for years and years. I started studying a bit later in life and learned latex first when I was 27. I was flabbergasted that it was not the default tool in the business world. Now I'd rather take an ice bath then write a larger document in word. I still really disagree with the poster though. Latex is not a good fit for Web pages.
What’s wrong with Word? Modern businesses are turning increasingly to document formats like Google Docs and Quip in my experience: online editing solutions where documents are stored online and are as easy to share at any stage in their lifecycle as sharing a hyperlink. Quip has extremely basic editing features, to the extent that I sometimes find it stifling. However, it does a great job at providing 95% of what mos…
It's still SharePoint but simultaneous editing works reasonably well (with auto save versioning instead of check outs and check ins).
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which step in that process could not be automated? What's so fucking difficult on either writing a Cross-Platform UI or using a Cross-Platform framework? Is it not instead the case that today's hipster developers simply want to ignore that platforms exist beside their fancy McBooks? Is it not the case that today's developers prefer a bizarre interpreted untyped language simply because that's what they learned for bui…
Please suggest a cross platform framework that doesn't come with accessibility issues, that also allows you to create as rich ui's like what you can do in a browser, and without various licenses that restrict what you can do with your code? Something that supports Android, iOS, Linux, Windows and MacOS.
I feel that it's cheating here to include android and ios in this list, since so much stuff that is developed either:
* is only for those two (and sometimes only one of those) platforms
* the preferred "version" on those platforms in an app, rather than web-based
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#86No. Tex is procedural. It's an execute-only language, not a declarative one. It would result in documents as rigid as PDF documents.
The other direction, constraint-based layout, is more useful. A is above B, C is to the right of D. Put all those into a constraint analyzer and come up with a layout. This is a 2D geometry problem and should be solved graphically, not procedurally. Nobody knew how to write constraint solvers thirty years ago, and they can be compute-intensive, but those are solved problems now.
A good example of a system which does this is the 2D sketch system in Autodesk Inventor and Fusion 360. Those are true parametric constraint solving systems. Plus, unlike web systems, they can do curves.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
LaTeX is not equivalent to PDF, though that is one publishing format it supports. HTML lacks numerous features which a first-class document-specification language should have, including grid layouts (only very recently possible), footnotes and sidenotes, and formulae. The promise of LaTeX is that documents could be defined strictly in semantic terms, though my belief is that this would last for approximately 37.229 m…
What do you mean by “runtime compiled”, exactly?
With LaTeX, the document creator must compile the document, through a fairly persnickety processor (latex, tetex, or an equivalent). Whilst that may still pass poorly-structured documents and result in poorly-formed output, straight-up illegal syntax won't make.
HTML has no such requirements. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from posting that in the first place. Throw something at a browser, and it will try its damndest to ingest it --- that's the "runtime compiled" element of the Web.
(It's not a perfect analogy to software compilation, though it can get surprisingly close.)
Essentially: the Web lacks any editor role. That's long been touted as a benefit. At scale, however, and over time ... it becomes problematic.
Moreover, the commercial Web has a selection process and corresponding evolutionary path which has come to be seen as less than optimal for those seeking high-value, high-relevance content. It is in fact hostile to such content, on multiple bases.
Again, LaTeX alone won't fix these problems. It addresses a few issues of structure. The concept of a post-authoring compliation state (ironically itself somewhat present in many web content-management systems, but not oriented around the document or content itself for the most part, but rather branding, advertising, and surveillance instrumenting) is also somewhat attractive but ... problematic. A discovery-mechanism scoring penalty might help (and Google's certainly applied that in other areas).
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
LaTeX is not equivalent to PDF, though that is one publishing format it supports. HTML lacks numerous features which a first-class document-specification language should have, including grid layouts (only very recently possible), footnotes and sidenotes, and formulae. The promise of LaTeX is that documents could be defined strictly in semantic terms, though my belief is that this would last for approximately 37.229 m…
> The promise of LaTeX is that documents could be defined strictly in semantic terms, though my belief is that this would last for approximately 37.229 minutes after such a proposal actually hit the Web. I mean, that already failed for LaTeX. To me it's kind of an unwieldy pile of wierd imperative imports. I did write my thesis in it, but for the most part it was "smash these imports together, pray for the best, if i…
What would sane defaults for css be?
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
LaTeX is not equivalent to PDF, though that is one publishing format it supports. HTML lacks numerous features which a first-class document-specification language should have, including grid layouts (only very recently possible), footnotes and sidenotes, and formulae. The promise of LaTeX is that documents could be defined strictly in semantic terms, though my belief is that this would last for approximately 37.229 m…
Footnotes and sidenotes can be realized as elements and styled/scripted to appear as actual footnotes on print media. Formulas are supported via MathML.
Neither are native first-class elements of plain HTML.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about write an application specifically designed to execute code that you give it in a safe environment. Then you only have to make that application crossplatform and everyone can target it instead. People write for the browser because it is a sandbox, store front, package manager, UI kit all rolled into one. If some smart cookie decides to forget about the web and build to that spec they could come up with a bet…
I've thought about this. The thing is that the current relevant browser environments (basically Safari, Chrome, and Firefox) require, what, a billion dollars a year to maintain? 2 billion? And this doesn't even count the various JavaScript frameworks, auth systems, CDNs, etc. Any replacement technology/protocol which does the same "write once, use everywhere" thing and manages to perform better would still need to ac…
It would certainly be a challenge but there are examples of cross platform applications that have succeeded in the market. The Godot game engine is a good one since it does a similar thing for a different segment of the market. It's cross platform and allows you to build applications that target those platforms and more (even the web!). So these things are within the reach of a small team, or even a single dedicated individual. The important thing is to focus on what matters. Providing a safe environment to run code downloaded from strangers, a set of configurable UI elements and an API for making network and storage requests. You're basically building a VM with a UI kit and some networking. You could probably bootstrap up from something simple since it would likely be a fun platform to target for hobbyists, if you could build a community or scene around it.