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The LaTeX cargo cult

joshparsons.net

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Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#11

Post by chimeracoder »

> LaTeX input files are a proprietary format.

This is a really misleading statement, especially since it comes after him stating that "LaTeX is free in both senses".

LaTeX input files apparently lack a standard specification, which is admittedly bad, but then again, so do the input files of many programming languages that some people on HN are writing on a daily basis[0].

This is not the same thing as them being proprietary; anyone can write a new LaTeX parser and there is nothing stopping them legally or technically from doing so.

[0] I may be wrong, but I believe PHP and Ruby both fall under this category. Markdown is another example (everyone parses it in a slightly different way, and while it's generally consistent, there are definitely warts around the edge cases where it's clear that Markdown would benefit from having a standard).

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#12

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

brodney wrote: post #4
ObviousScience wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too agree with all of his points... but what's a realistic alternative stack that satisfies those points without drastically cutting down on the available rendering tools and packages for specialized tasks?

If .rtf/.doc is in such high demand, can't we output to those formats using LaTeX? I think of it as just another output alongside dvi/pdf/etc, but I know very little of the internals that would generate those additional formats.

It would be more rational to output to HTML5, since there are insane amounts of HTML to X converters around (APIs and tools alike). PDF or Doc from HTML is utterly trivial at this stage.

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#13

Post by htns »

>LaTeX will never be able to effectively render a LaTeX document to a web browser’s finite view of an infinitely tall document or read it aloud, because its output primitives are oriented around print media, and its apparently declarative constructs are defined in terms of them.

That is somewhat untrue. You can lay out content in a box of fixed width, and then set the page size to that plus margins. Now perhaps the performance isn't good enough for real time rendering, but setting up custom schemes is very possible and not as difficult as people might fear.

And LaTeX already supports PDF search, so I don't see why it could not support accessibility features like speaking the text.

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#14

Post by Rhapso »

I use latex daily and tolerate it. If you can offer me a tool that does a similar job (conforms to ieee journal style specifications and deals with citations well) then I would love to hear about it.

The biggest reason I do like latex, is that it allows me to put 1 sentence per line and has a text based format that git handles well. This makes collaborative editing and writing much more manageable.

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#15

Post by lamby »

siscia wrote: post #8

> LaTeX input files are proprietary to LaTeX, just as .doc is Word. The only definition of LaTeX as a language is “whatever LaTeX does”. I am sorry but I don't see this point... Everybody is free to write a parser for .tex files and use it for whatever reason they want... You are not free to do so with .doc or other proprietary format...

> You are not free to do so with .doc or other proprietary format...

Eh?

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#16

Post by graycat »

Good news for the OP: The OP seems to want more output options than just paper or PDF. It appears that the OP also wants HTML output. Okay.

TeX and LaTeX say next to nothing about the final physical form of the document and, instead, leave all that to an appropriate device driver. Or, TeX (and likely LaTeX) puts out a file called device independent with three letter file name extension DVI.

Basically a DVI file says, put this character here on the page, then put the next character there on the page, etc. Then move to a new page.

Well, then, it would appear that there could be a device driver that would convert a DVI file to HTML. And there should be a way to have the HTML file make use of suitable fonts and the special math symbols. Besides, now Unicode has a lot of characters and symbols.

It appears that the OP feels that typing a paper into TeX or LaTeX somehow locks him into TeX in a bad way. But, TeX is fully open source with some of the best and most beautiful software documentation ever written.

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#17

Post by brians »

It's funny to hear this compared to Markdown. The reference implementation of Markdown uses regexes applied in order---an operationally defined language. Only niche implementations like the beautiful Pandoc---also by a philosopher---use a real parser to provide a less leaky declarative semantics.

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#18

Post by namtrac »

lamby wrote: post #15
siscia wrote: post #8

> LaTeX input files are proprietary to LaTeX, just as .doc is Word. The only definition of LaTeX as a language is “whatever LaTeX does”. I am sorry but I don't see this point... Everybody is free to write a parser for .tex files and use it for whatever reason they want... You are not free to do so with .doc or other proprietary format...

> You are not free to do so with .doc or other proprietary format... Eh?

doc format is not documented, obviously.

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#19

Post by brandonbloom »

namtrac wrote: post #18
lamby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are not free to do so with .doc or other proprietary format... Eh?

doc format is not documented, obviously.

The doc (and docx) formats are actually very well documented, thanks to pressure from the EU:

[MS-DOC]: Word (.doc) Binary File Format

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/cc313153(v=of...

[MS-DOCX]: Word Extensions to the Office Open XML (.docx) File Format

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd773189(v=office.12...

Re: The LaTeX cargo cult

#20

Post by TTPrograms »

tonfa wrote: post #5

Though he points out this mostly applies to philosophy papers. Many of the points do not really apply in some other scientific fields (I usually had no trouble submit LaTeX papers for CS journals/conferences).

The primary strength of using LaTeX is math typesetting. If you're not writing equations the argument gets to be very subjective. If you are writing equations there's nearly no alternative (at least one nearly as well proven).
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