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XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

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Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#31

Post by jhpriestley »

jhnewhall wrote: post #28

Tex, because it's author didn't care to reuse XML. Having used it for publications and during the university i really, i despise Tex. Simply the language sucks, the outcome is nice, but those slashes and parenthesis really sucked. With a XML syntax we could easily create beautiful editors, make it easy to parse with schema validation, etc. Problem is that this card castle grew, avoiding alternatives such as docbook,…

An XML-syntax language? Like XSLT? Yeah, that's thriving.

The awesome editors and tools that are supposed to grow around any XML-based syntax (after the hard part -- parsing -- is taken care of), are like the modern version of the "sufficiently smart compiler".

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#32

Post by jff »

jhnewhall wrote: post #28

Tex, because it's author didn't care to reuse XML. Having used it for publications and during the university i really, i despise Tex. Simply the language sucks, the outcome is nice, but those slashes and parenthesis really sucked. With a XML syntax we could easily create beautiful editors, make it easy to parse with schema validation, etc. Problem is that this card castle grew, avoiding alternatives such as docbook,…

XML: published 1996.

TeX: Initially released 1978.

Plus, writing XML makes me puke, so even with the occasional grossness of TeX syntax I'm happy it's not XML.

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#33

Post by jpdoctor »

_delirium wrote: post #29
jpdoctor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People consider Word a replacement for LaTeX for authoring books with equations? Seriously?

If it's just equations (i.e. using no TeX features besides the $equation syntax$), that's what their conversion workflow is for. You can submit your manuscript in simple TeX and then they convert it to their preferred format with some scripts. I believe they'll also accept Markdown extended with TeX-syntax equations (not sure if that's official, but I know one author who submitted a Markdown manuscript w/ TeX equatio…

Ah, now I understand: When you wrote "In book publishing it's shrunk to a very small niche, even in technical areas", you mean the "technical areas" that don't use equations in their books.

My background is blinding me to the fact that books with equations is really a small niche market. That small niche is completely dominated by LaTeX.

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#34

Post by adavies42 »

jhnewhall wrote: post #28

Tex, because it's author didn't care to reuse XML. Having used it for publications and during the university i really, i despise Tex. Simply the language sucks, the outcome is nice, but those slashes and parenthesis really sucked. With a XML syntax we could easily create beautiful editors, make it easy to parse with schema validation, etc. Problem is that this card castle grew, avoiding alternatives such as docbook,…

XML 1.0 is from 1998. more than twenty years after Knuth started TeX. Even SGML is only from 1986, I suppose he could've used GML....

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#35

Post by jpdoctor »

tomjen3 wrote: post #24
siphr wrote: post #2

In all honesty I did not realise LaTeX needed saving.

I don't know. I can write LaTex but I must admit at times I would prefer something that could be written from a real language but still use LaTeXs typesetting, kerning, etc.

Probably OT: I haven't had much of a chance to use LyX, but it looked promising. (I know folks that swear by it.)

Any reviews here welcomed.

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#36

Post by batista »

siphr wrote: post #2

In all honesty I did not realise LaTeX needed saving.

Download and install LaTeX from scratch.

Write a document, add some figures, use a custom OT font with it and save it as a PDF.

If you couldn't find at least 10 things that beg to be hugely improved in the whole process, don't ever try to work at QA.

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#37

Post by [deleted] »

jpdoctor wrote: post #33
_delirium wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's just equations (i.e. using no TeX features besides the $equation syntax$), that's what their conversion workflow is for. You can submit your manuscript in simple TeX and then they convert it to their preferred format with some scripts. I believe they'll also accept Markdown extended with TeX-syntax equations (not sure if that's official, but I know one author who submitted a Markdown manuscript w/ TeX equatio…

Ah, now I understand: When you wrote "In book publishing it's shrunk to a very small niche, even in technical areas", you mean the "technical areas" that don't use equations in their books. My background is blinding me to the fact that books with equations is really a small niche market. That small niche is completely dominated by LaTeX.

[deleted]

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#38

Post by gchpaco »

jvm wrote: post #14
JoachimSchipper wrote: post #5

Umm, have these people ever heard of backward compatibility? Admittedly, many TeX package authors haven't either, but just dropping pstricks is going to make a ridiculous number of documents that have a figure in them impossible to compile. Not to mention the fact that TikZ, while better, is not better enough that everyone will want to invest time learning it... MikTeX's install-on-first-use has its problems, but doe…

Can't they just maintain both a bloated legacy version and a stripped down version that they focus on?

The TeX community in general has a philosophy that anything written since 1983 (TeX'83) or so should a) compile and b) produce precisely the same typeset document if it is recompiled today. This has obnoxious issues and is one of the reasons for the profusion of packages--the norm is to change the name for incompatible changes so that old users can continue on.

Re: XeTeX: could it be TeX's saviour?

#39

Post by SeanLuke »

_delirium wrote: post #21
SeanLuke wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In CS some conferences are slowly switching to Word, or offering an option to authors (who are slowly switching to Word, especially outside of theory-heavy areas). Huh? In my research areas (evolutionary computation, machine learning, artificial intelligence, multiagent systems, robotics) this isn't remotely true. CS conferences of almost all stripes have always offered non-LaTeX submission routes. But LaTeX domina…

It varies by sub-area, but artificial intelligence is also my area, and I don't see that dominance anymore, especially in the more interdisciplinary areas (anything that overlaps with HCI, psychology, cognitive science, etc.). I also don't see the stigma anymore among younger researchers; I detect that attitude from older people mostly, and some of the "harder core than thou" people in math-heavy sub-areas, but there…

> AAAI, IJCAI, and AAMAS

These venues have had Word options for well over a decade or more. I recall a higher rate of Word (and HTML!) submissions in Agent97 -- the predecessor of AAMAS -- than I see in AAMAS now. At any rate I think there are few significant changes in LaTeX usage in those conferences.

You're right that the big place where Word shows up in CS is in HCI, software engineering, and interdisciplinary areas. Is it possible that, given your mention of CHI, that you're from these areas and possibly experiencing a sample bias?

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