I've been using TeX for decades. No, not
LaTeX, just TeX as in D. Knuth's
The
TeXbook.
I've been thrilled with TeX from my first
usage to the present. Of course, when I
want to write some math, I use TeX. I
also have a collection of TeX macros I
wrote for verbatim, cross-references,
annotation of figures, foils, ordered
lists, simple lists, etc. TeX is my
standard for any good or better quality
writing, e.g., serious letters. For my
last published paper in applied math,
right, I did that in TeX (I don't like to
publish -- seems financially
irresponsible). The journal was very
happy to get my TeX source. I also
included the source of the few macros of
mine that I used in the paper, and the
journal was also happy to receive those.
For the core, original applied math for my
startup, I wrote that in TeX.
Net, I really like TeX.
For "parsing" TeX as in this Hacker News
thread, I have no idea what that might
mean or why I would want to do that. TeX,
just the way Knuth designed and documented
it are just fine with me. For me, TeX
solves a big problem; I'm just thrilled to
have that problem SOLVED; and I have no
desire to invest time or energy in another
solution to the problem.
Also relevant, in praise of simple text:
Uh, my most heavily used program is my
favorite text editor, Kedit. To me, the
most important view, at the most important
level, computing and/or computer usage
is just simple text, i.e., is still like
old fashioned typing. So, I have 100+
macros I wrote for Kedit, and some of
those help with typing TeX.
"Simple text" for computing? Yup. Early
in my startup, I decided to go with
Microsoft and Windows instead of Linux or
other versions of Unix.
For the 100,000 lines of code (~24,000
programming language statements and the
rest comments or blank lines) for my
startup (a Web site), I wrote that with
just Kedit. Once I tried to use
Microsoft's Visual Studio, and for just
the start on just a first program in
Visual Basic .NET, I got a big directory
of a lot of files I didn't understand. I
could see I would need to invest a lot of
time and energy into getting the software
for my startup to run via Visual Studio
and could see no important reason why I
should make that investment. I've been
happy with that decision: For Visual
Basic .NET, I type that in via Kedit.
In praise of Visual Basic .NET:
I know; I know; according to a lot of
people and industry norms, I'm supposed to
use C, C++, C#, or other programming
languages in the family of C and
certainly nothing called basic. Well,
as I recall, the original C documentation
admitted that the syntax of C was
"idiosyncratic". E.g., it appeared that
i = ++j+++++k++
was legal -- increase each of j and k by
1; add them; assign the result to i; then
again increase each of them by 1. Once I
tried this statement on two C compilers,
and they didn't agree on the results! So,
it seemed that the syntax was too
"idiosyncratic" even for the compiler
writers! That was enough to warn me to
stay away from C, and mostly I've been
successful at that!
Then much of what I like and want from
Microsoft is their .NET software and
especially their documentation. As far as
I can tell Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET) is a
perfectly good way to make full or nearly
so use of .NET and the CLR (common
language runtime or some such), exploit
their documentation, etc. And with
basic I get traditional programming
language syntax. To me, that was enough
evidence -- decision made. Problem
solved. TODO list item checked off.
Yup, at one point my VB.NET calls some C
code, right, LINPACK -- apparently the way
to do that is to use "platform invoke",
and I did and it works fine. I'm still
happy as a clam. So, right, I type in my
VB.NET code with just Kedit -- been
thrilled! VB.NET and Kedit -- happy as a
clam!
For TeX, I type that in via Kedit. For
email, Kedit. For forum posts, usually
Kedit. For working with collections of
files in the Windows file system NTFS
(abbreviates maybe New Technology File
System), Kedit. For my log of food,
exercise, sleep, ..., Kedit. Recipes,
sure, Kedit. Shopping lists, Kedit. A
very important file, my most important, of
various facts, short notes, references,
and links, right, Kedit. Generally I like
to use just simple text, and, thus, Kedit
for as much as possible.
For this thread and its
"Sile: A Modern Rewrite of TeX"
I looked at it and could make no sense out
of what it was or what it was for. There
was something about hyphenation in
Turkish! Looks like I should stay with
TeX!