Live data from Hacker News

Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

github.com

131–140 of 285 posts

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#131
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s also the mature and reliable Org-mode, if you don’t mind Emacs as an editor.

Does org-mode have a spec? From what I've seen, org-mode is defined as whatever Emacs does. Without a spec I can't see how it's a viable format for widespread usage.

Org-mode has all three of:

1. Spec, written after the fact, not by a core dev.

2. Live help in 'org-info'.

3. Elisp string extraction via 'M-x describe-function' and the like.

Difficulties arise from subtle inconsistencies between the three, and inability of any one to comprehend the kitchen-tool-bin jumble of low- and high-level functionality that has been added over the years.

OTOH, content display is economical of eye and finger effort, and some of the Emacs interaction features startingly powerful.

I wrote my own, use-case specific converter to expand org-format to HTML. Runs on the CL, written in Go.

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#132

Markdown, Quardown, Typst, this and that. This looks to LaTeX. All of this became so confusing and un-standardized - I went back to HTML+CSS.

If 2005 text editors autocomplete made it easy to balance and indent html/xml tags and syntax highlighting like today, would JSON, Yaml, Markdown have taken off? In The Art of Unix Programming from 2003, the author states editing xml by hand is torture, hence we must invent unique text formats and parsers for the same.

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#133

I'm not quite sure who this is for. Markdown is for keeping things simple. There's plenty of of "proper" markup languages and full programming languages to actually write code in. Why do we need a hybrid program like this, which is not as simple as pure markup, and is not as powerful as a proper templating language? I personally just run markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML As a…

That's why these things don't go anywhere. If I need to write formatting details, it is better to use LaTeX which is a well-tested and stable language that will last for another 30 years.

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#134

I'm not quite sure who this is for. Markdown is for keeping things simple. There's plenty of of "proper" markup languages and full programming languages to actually write code in. Why do we need a hybrid program like this, which is not as simple as pure markup, and is not as powerful as a proper templating language? I personally just run markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML As a…

>markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML

Uh...

maybe thats why they just want markdown -> PDF/HTML

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#135

I'm not quite sure who this is for. Markdown is for keeping things simple. There's plenty of of "proper" markup languages and full programming languages to actually write code in. Why do we need a hybrid program like this, which is not as simple as pure markup, and is not as powerful as a proper templating language? I personally just run markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML As a…

>markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML Uh... maybe thats why they just want markdown -> PDF/HTML

Well, but you don't have `markdown -> PDF/HTML`

Also, if you don't need the python bits, you just skip Python :)

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#136

Instead of bolting an engine onto a bicycle to travel long distances, why not just use a motorcycle?

What's a good motorcycle for typesetting? Any recommendations?

EasyWriter!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyWriter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j7zD5ydpUo

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its for people who want latex but are mad that latex became c++

If one just chooses a reasonable documentclass and if need be a few packages suited to the requirements of one's document, then it all "just works" with (mostly) sensible defaults and minimal configuration. Memoir hugely simplified my own work in LaTeX back when I was doing book composition. Or, just use LyX....

Well, you'll have to install and keep those packages somewhere on your system. And maybe a few months from now after your latex distribution got updated by the system your document suddenly no longer compiles.

What I want is something like npm-like package management for this, where the packages are just kept there next to the document. I don't care if I'll have a package 20 times on my system either, storage hasn't been a concern in many years.

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#138
post #30
post #3

This is so powerful, it makes me wonder why they didn't just make a new markdowny syntax for Latex so they could reuse everything from the Latex ecosystem. A bit like what CoffeeScript was for JavaScript, I mean.

That assumes that the only issue with LaTeX is its syntax. Other issues I can think of are that LaTeX doesn't generate HTML and that LaTeX is completely Unicode-disabled.

Your statement is not correct, LuaLaTeX can output any unicode character you need and also you can use Lua as well for scripting.

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#139

I'm not quite sure who this is for. Markdown is for keeping things simple. There's plenty of of "proper" markup languages and full programming languages to actually write code in. Why do we need a hybrid program like this, which is not as simple as pure markup, and is not as powerful as a proper templating language? I personally just run markdown -> HTML/CSS -> python templating (Jinja or something) -> PDF/HTML As a…

That's why these things don't go anywhere. If I need to write formatting details, it is better to use LaTeX which is a well-tested and stable language that will last for another 30 years.

Yet also incredible verbose and outdated

Re: Quarkdown: A modern Markdown-based typesetting system

#140
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumes that the only issue with LaTeX is its syntax. Other issues I can think of are that LaTeX doesn't generate HTML and that LaTeX is completely Unicode-disabled.

How do the science and math papers use characters that aren't in... ASCII? Maybe I need to look at an ASCII chart. Out of curiosity, isn't UTF implementation much easier now than it has been? I piddle in writing things and I rarely contemplate UTF. Once I tried to reverse engineer an encryption plugin that used Asiatic characters as the ciphertext, and I wanted to use emoji, and that was when I learned I am too dumb…

Sorry you need to catch up! The latest LaTeX engines (LuaLaTeX) can even do unicode math! But yes the Unicode spec s not something one can understand in a few hours.
Post reply on HN