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Nota is a language for writing documents, like academic papers and blog posts

nota-lang.org

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Re: Nota is a language for writing documents, like academic papers and blog posts

#3

Post by kstrauser »

So:

* More in the space of LaTeX than Markdown (but with elements of each).

* Written in JavaScript (so lots of of people can contribute in a language they already know).

* MIT license.

Nice! I don't know that I have an immediate use for it today, but this looks super nifty. If I did want to write something that needed some LaTeX-y features, and wasn't aiming for publication in a place that required it, I'd give Nota a shot. While I think Knuth is basically a demigod, it's not like he descended from on high, gave us TeX, and said "thou shalt never try anything new ever again".

Re: Nota is a language for writing documents, like academic papers and blog posts

#4

Post by jxf »

> There are two main mediums for digital documents: PDFs and web pages. PDFs were designed to mirror physical documents, so they impose the real-world constraints of paper: page breaks, fixed width, and immutable styling. Web pages, by contrast, provides an essential dynamism. Web pages are undeniably the future of digital documents.

I actually don't agree with this. I think _not_ having "essential dynamism" where it's not needed is actually a feature, not a bug.

Re: Nota is a language for writing documents, like academic papers and blog posts

#5

Post by esafak »

Basically this is markup + code (Javascript), which is a combination targeted by MDX. The last time someone mentioned this, the author said Nota is geared towards documentation, while MDX is geared towards web sites: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31349579

If that is so, I think someone needs to wrap Nota into a product for it to take off. Because while the results look great, fiddling with node.js to build a document is too much work -- it's like Latex all over again. Most people will prefer to use Notion or a word processor.

Re: Nota is a language for writing documents, like academic papers and blog posts

#7

Post by fbdab103 »

kstrauser wrote: post #3

So: * More in the space of LaTeX than Markdown (but with elements of each). * Written in JavaScript (so lots of of people can contribute in a language they already know). * MIT license. Nice! I don't know that I have an immediate use for it today, but this looks super nifty. If I did want to write something that needed some LaTeX-y features, and wasn't aiming for publication in a place that required it, I'd give Nota…

TeX was definitely groundbreaking, but I consider it a product of its time. Far too much cleverness in macro expansions and weaving tricks to keep memory usage in check for what are now laughable limits.

Missing far too many niceties in comparison to modern languages with more guardrails to protect yourself from silly mistakes. The only way I can write Latex is to heavily rely upon \input{} segments to keep isolated blocks in case I break something through a missed escape.

I keep yearning for a modern take, but it feels like we are stuck in a local optimum from which there is no escape. New platform has to fight with the decades of accumulated inertia and packages which exist in Tex.

Re: Nota is a language for writing documents, like academic papers and blog posts

#8

Post by politelemon »

The trouble with js used then becomes whether the browser has implemented whatever function that nota expects, in the same way as other browsers, or implemented at all. Even in modern web development there are situations where things don't work in Firefox or let's say KDE browser. This leads to the usual notice put up be lazy or incompetent developers about viewing in Chrome/Safari only.
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