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The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

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Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#91

Post by chalst »

patrickg wrote: post #75
HnNoPassMailer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone explain the downvotes? Thanks.

Only someone not related to typesetting can say that LaTeX is dead. Exactly the opposite is true. Even though there are good alternatives these days such as InDesign and (I hate to say that:) MS Word (which now has a much better formula editor and OpenType Math fonts), great developments are taking place, for example LuaTeX. Not directly LaTeX but TeX: I have built a high quality database publishing system based on L…

MS Word: Note that the formula editor is very carefully based on the algorithm in Tex, as MS have documented in a tech report.

Hilariously, they screwed up the implementation, which does not match the specification in their tech report: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/20487/why-does-ms-wor...

Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#92

Post by patrickg »

Luyt wrote: post #78
patrickg wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only someone not related to typesetting can say that LaTeX is dead. Exactly the opposite is true. Even though there are good alternatives these days such as InDesign and (I hate to say that:) MS Word (which now has a much better formula editor and OpenType Math fonts), great developments are taking place, for example LuaTeX. Not directly LaTeX but TeX: I have built a high quality database publishing system based on L…

I think that page could benefit from some examples created by speedataPublisher; now I only see a list of features and requirements, not what I'm able to create with it.

I am working on it. Thanks for pointing it out once more!

Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#93

Post by bootload »

"... A 4GB TeX distribution dependant on over 100 binaries is not acceptable on the iPad. It is incapable of delivering the slick user experience that the iOS platform’s adherents expect and love ..."

Xterm (iSSH) to linux box? ~ http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=280730

Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#94

Post by viraptor »

tzury wrote: post #77

Perhaps LaTeX creation system should move to the cloud, think of a google-docs like service which will offer a rich, reliable and simple set of tools to create, publish and collaboratively work on documents.

http://www.scribtex.com/ did it.

Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#95

Post by kleiba »

berntb wrote: post #68

What am I missing? Why have no one suggested to split LaTeX into two parts like the Emacs server, or something? With a client and a server to run on your desktop/laptop/etc.

In fact, you could run a remote Emacs and edit LaTeX with it, using the excellent AUCTeX package. Of course, that means you need to have a network connection plus a server you can ssh into.

Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#97

Post by kleiba »

guywithabike wrote: post #30
jsilence wrote: post #15

"iPad is the most beautiful platform out there" Sorry, but I fail to understand, why any serious TeX-Head would say that. The platform is crippled and your problem shows it. You are ranting in the wrong direction. -jsl

"Beautiful" has nothing to do with whether it's crippled or not. In any case, how is a 4GB executable + several-second runtime for trivial documents Apple's fault? Is the iPad crippled because it can't run a crappy cross-compiled version of OpenOffice with a PS/2 mouse?

I guess the argument is that it's apple's "fault" because the restrictions of the platform require the whole package to be bundled as a single binary, instead of allowing a more modular distribution mechanism. Most of the contents in the 4G are extension packages.

But I am not sure if "fault" is an appropriate term here anyway, we're simply observing two different approaches to software bundling that happen to be incompatible.

Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#98

Post by einhverfr »

shaggyfrog wrote: post #79
Tomis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could use a virtual machine library (if anything suitable exists) and run everything inside one executable - it would probably have horrid performance but you get rid of the single binary restriction. You can put on a nice front-end and tell the user how much longer he has to wait until the operation is complete.

Virtual machines are generally prohibited by the guidelines as well. (Exceptions exist for things like script interpreters, which need to be present for some games to run, e.g. Lua.)

So, go with LuaTeX ;-)

Re: The price of a messy codebase: No LaTeX on the iPad

#100

Post by abrahamsen »

Is there some problem with the MacOS port of (Live) TeX?

A two page LaTeX test document on my old Dell Optiplex (Q6700 cpu) with Ubuntu 10.4 takes 0.033s, two orders of magnitudes less than he experiences.

The 539 page reference manual for the project I'm working on takes 3 seconds to format.

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