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I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

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Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#41

Post by aulin »

ProfXponent wrote: post #15
RugnirViking wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academia. At least, its widespread (almost universal) where I am studying. Mainly to manage citations, figures, and tables of contents automatically. Tools like Sharelatex are used for collaboration on papers.

That’s interesting. Is it really a problem that requires manually writing the code? Seems like there should be more elegant solutions by this point.

There really isn't much code to write for a typical scientific document, just sectioning and math. You usually include the same preamble in your own documents and a preamble from the editor if you're targeting a scientific journal, but most of the time you focus on the content.

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#42

Post by camel-cdr »

I'm always amazed how people could bootstrap something as feature rich and versatile as LaTeX from plain TeX.

I'd really like to get to know plain TeX a bit better, but I've got no idea where to start.

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#43

Post by dash2 »

Jesus H Carnegie. I JUST WANT TO WRITE AN ACADEMIC ARTICLE.

I mean, look at this abhorrence. And look at what you open up in a TeX file, which again is meant to represent English prose.

   % Options for packages loaded elsewhere
    \PassOptionsToPackage{unicode}{hyperref}
    \PassOptionsToPackage{hyphens}{url}
    %
    \documentclass[
    ]{article}
    \usepackage{amsmath,amssymb}
    \usepackage{lmodern}
    \usepackage{iftex}
    \ifPDFTeX
    ... and more and more of this dross ...
I want to get stuck into the article. At least show me my abstract. But no. It's just more and more backslashes.

It's just vile. And the people who use it have Stockholm syndrome, and they pass it on to their PhD students who spend nights before their presentation at 2am, trying to align a table and crying. Then they have Stockholm syndrome too, and they tell you "it's pronounced LARTECH" and give themselves a little pat on the back.

And here's an equation:

    \sigma _{I}^{2}=a^{2}s^{2}+\left( 1-a\right)^{2}S^{2}+2a\left( 1-a\right)\sigma.
How are you supposed to manipulate that? I can open up a WYSIWYG editor and literally do maths by just copy-pasting parts from one side to another. But this, I can't even read, let alone intuit.

TeX. It's the worst.

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#44

Post by netizen-936824 »

politician wrote: post #31
netizen-936824 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in nature was necessarily "designed"

Proponents of the anthropic principal disagree. Nevertheless, it's irrelevant to this thread.

No, its definitely relevant. Hands were not designed with any specific function in mind. There was not evolutionary pressure to "throw rocks at the eye of a mammoth"

Did orangutans evolve hands to throw rocks at mammoths? No, they did not

The parent comment is making ridiculous claims without evidence

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-do-orangutans-eat.h...

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#45

Post by aulin »

SebastianKra wrote: post #29
ProfXponent wrote: post #11

What is the intended use for LaTex these days? I’m not trying to flame, I just have no idea why anyone would choose to use it over html/css or just a word processor.

PDF is unfortunately still the preferred format for sharing research papers. And you're right, single file HTML with embedded images would be a much better format, but I assume publishers are preventing this.

have you ever printed a webpage?

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#46

Post by diffeomorphism »

red_trumpet wrote: post #33
kalenx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most usages, you don't need to write the code. Sometimes buff out rough edges for your specific application, but in my 12 years in academia, I think I've only really _written_ Latex twice.

How do you typeset your research then?

By just using the existing "code"/markup. Similarly, I would not count writing markdown as programming. Now if you need some new stuff, e.g. complicated tree diagrams, it starts to turn into programming.

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#47

Post by foobarian »

dash2 wrote: post #43

Jesus H Carnegie. I JUST WANT TO WRITE AN ACADEMIC ARTICLE. I mean, look at this abhorrence. And look at what you open up in a TeX file, which again is meant to represent English prose . % Options for packages loaded elsewhere \PassOptionsToPackage{unicode}{hyperref} \PassOptionsToPackage{hyphens}{url} % \documentclass[ ]{article} \usepackage{amsmath,amssymb} \usepackage{lmodern} \usepackage{iftex} \ifPDFTeX ... and…

I am with you for all* of it. The Stockholm syndrome bit is oh so true. But I take exception with the math, Latex math is its only redeeming quality (with Adobe FrameMaker coming in a distant second).

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#48

Post by bowsamic »

dash2 wrote: post #43

Jesus H Carnegie. I JUST WANT TO WRITE AN ACADEMIC ARTICLE. I mean, look at this abhorrence. And look at what you open up in a TeX file, which again is meant to represent English prose . % Options for packages loaded elsewhere \PassOptionsToPackage{unicode}{hyperref} \PassOptionsToPackage{hyphens}{url} % \documentclass[ ]{article} \usepackage{amsmath,amssymb} \usepackage{lmodern} \usepackage{iftex} \ifPDFTeX ... and…

As a physics postdoc I have to say that is quite a simple equation

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#49

Post by aulin »

MrVandemar wrote: post #37
Pinus wrote: post #6

You sometimes see people ask fairly simple Python questions on Stack Overflow, that could be solved by five lines of plain Python, and be answered with some Pandas magic incantation that happens to do what they want with one call. I always find this a bit sad, because it seems to take away the idea that programming is about assembling composable parts, replacing it by a search for the right magic thing from a box of…

Yes! Plain python is almost always crystal clear and self explanatory. But "idiomatic python" which people seem to compete to be "more idiomatic than thou" is none of these things. It's actually a barrier to learning the language.

> almost always crystal clear and self explanatory

and slow. Most of the time the idiomatic pandas answer takes advantage of its vectorization capabilities while plain python would require nested loops.

Re: I hate LaTeX, I love LaTeX

#50

Post by ProfXponent »

gus_massa wrote: post #34
ProfXponent wrote: post #11

What is the intended use for LaTex these days? I’m not trying to flame, I just have no idea why anyone would choose to use it over html/css or just a word processor.

We use a lot of LaTeX to make the midterms and final exams in the math department of my university. Everyone knows how to write in LaTeX, so if I make a internal helper package or a bunch of macros, then everyone can use it with minimal training. The problem with wysiwyg word processors is that people get creative and it's very difficult to enforce the same style for all the material.

Ok, that makes perfect sense.
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