Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

castel.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 110 posts

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#101

Post by Myrmornis »

ant6n wrote: post #88
Myrmornis wrote: post #20

Plug: I recently created a new LaTeX editing environment for Emacs with automatic inline rendering of math, TikZ diagrams, and tables: https://github.com/dandavison/xenops It creates plain LaTeX files that can be shared with non-Emacs users, but also works with org-mode. Math preview images are SVG by default and are crisp on high res / retina screens.

When reading the article I was thinking "shit, maybe I have to learn drop emacs and finally learn vim". But then u post your emacs latex plugin and I can perish that thought. (Do any of the features work in the terminal?)

Hi, Emacs can't display images when it is running as a terminal application, so probably only makes sense to use xenops with Emacs running as a real graphical application.

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#102

Post by whimsicalism »

ad8e wrote: post #69
jimhefferon wrote: post #3

Obviously the author can take these notes and be a mathematical success. That's amazing. Personally, I confess that I don't have enough cycles to both understand a lecture and live-LaTeX it. (Can I add that I am a math PhD and also very experienced with LaTeX? So if you feel that this may be too much for you, IMHO that's OK).

I typed notes throughout my undergrad, and it worked poorly. Everything in math is slow to type and fast to handwrite: subscripts, exponents, arrows, matrices, Greek letters, labels, diagrams, integrals, fractions. My shorthand omitted all latex conventions (A_0 became A0, arrows became ->), but it wasn't enough. For non-math classes, typing notes worked well.

I found the ability to copy and paste and then modify while taking notes more than made up for the difference in note-taking speed.

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#103

Post by a_lost_needle »

yesenadam wrote: post #51
a_lost_needle wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at what you do remember easily, and then game your note taking process, so that you add that stimulus/reward to your note taking. Maybe it's paper, maybe it's a computer, maybe it 's a fountain pen. Maybe you're like me and your retention is better if you're fully engaged and not taking notes. I see notes as some see a camera. You're so busy trying to transcribe what you're seeing, you're not fully compre…

The person you're addressing like they're 16 and asking for your guidance is a literal expert in their field(s). (See https://hefferon.net/ )

I replied to the wrong comment, I meant to reply to the person above. The one that asked for guidance, like they were a college student struggling...

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#104

Post by a_lost_needle »

jimhefferon wrote: post #100
yesenadam wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you're addressing like they're 16 and asking for your guidance is a literal expert in their field(s). (See https://hefferon.net/ )

Thank you for the kind words, but I nodded when I read the parent post. It reminded me of something my wife and I talk about, how we took a lot of video when our kids were young, and maybe we should have just enjoyed more of the time.

Apologies, I intended to comment on the same one you replied to, not to your comment. I remember struggling so hard in school to take notes, and then not understanding them.

I hadn't heard of you, but really respect what you're doing. I hope I didn't cause offence.

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#105

Post by jonnycomputer »

gjulianm wrote: post #96
jonnycomputer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notation in the lecture couldn't have been that complex then. Or the pace that rapid. What about diagrams?

For complex notation I had a keyboard distribution with symbols available (e.g., α is alt-a, ∩ is alt + shift + i, ∈ is alt + shift + [) and also made commands to abbreviate, which made it faster than writing (and more consistent). The pace depended on the lecture, but I had no issues keeping up with the teachers speaking/writing pace. If the class was being too complex and I couldn't understand and write in my own w…

well done

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#106

Post by jimhefferon »

a_lost_needle wrote: post #104
jimhefferon wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the kind words, but I nodded when I read the parent post. It reminded me of something my wife and I talk about, how we took a lot of video when our kids were young, and maybe we should have just enjoyed more of the time.

Apologies, I intended to comment on the same one you replied to, not to your comment. I remember struggling so hard in school to take notes, and then not understanding them. I hadn't heard of you, but really respect what you're doing. I hope I didn't cause offence.

> offence

Heavens, no. Enjoy the day.

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#107

Post by cole-k »

circularfoyers wrote: post #46
cole-k wrote: post #30

I'm always envious of people who have vim/emacs setups that appear so clean and functional. I just think to my cobbled-together vim setup which both had a long startup and was riddled with idiosyncrasies (both I'm sure caused by my own misconfiguration). I since have migrated to spacemacs, thinking that I could let people more competent than I do the brunt of configuration, but still I have managed to make the startu…

I'm the same in desiring a preconfigured setup. I think it's similar with how I like the same thing but for a tiling window manager like i3/sway. I suspect there might be a fair few who still prefer the vim or emacs environment that want a preconfigured setup with a basic level of configuration, as is commonly offered by a desktop environment. I like leaving the configuration to someone who I know has a better unders…

Usually what happens when I try a text editor, shell, etc. is that I'm happy with 95% of the features but there are a few things that nag at me. And inevitably I go down a rabbit hole of hacks until I end up with (an approximation of) my desired feature. If I do that enough times then something ends up wonky until my whole setup is kinda scuffed.

As an example pertinent to this post, I repeatedly have to dismiss notifications from pdflatex about some sort of incompatibility with my setup. I think it's relative line numbering, I'm not sure though. My attempts to fix it have only resulted in pdf files occasionally opening as raw code.

I will take a look at SpaceVim, though. I've been using vanilla vim for a while to edit personal stuff because I don't want to open spacemacs...

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#108

Post by jason0597 »

hwers wrote: post #13

I did this too for a while. It's a fun challenge for yourself and a cool way to brag to your friends. Paper is such a better interface though and real time latex takes away too much of your attention from the lecture I found in the end (the best way to attend a lecture is to barely write anything imo, just some rough notes while mostly spending your time in your head - if you missed something look at a friends' notes…

Indeed. Paper still remains king. Or a fancy iPad with a pen if you can afford it, I certainly don't have the money for it.

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#109

Post by a_lost_needle »

jimhefferon wrote: post #106
a_lost_needle wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, I intended to comment on the same one you replied to, not to your comment. I remember struggling so hard in school to take notes, and then not understanding them. I hadn't heard of you, but really respect what you're doing. I hope I didn't cause offence.

> offence Heavens, no. Enjoy the day.

Really?

Re: Taking notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim (2019)

#110

Post by mwcampbell »

908B64B197 wrote: post #75
miki123211 wrote: post #33

Blind person here. I've been using LaTex for note taking since age 15. Since braille typewriters are heavy and clunky and electronic braille notetakers are expensive, I decided it was the right thing to do pretty early on. I started doing this when I transferred out of blind school. Being able to compile my notes into a PDF was definitely useful, considering I had to work with teachers who didn't have any experience…

> considering I had to work with teachers who didn't have any experience with blind people before. Sorry you had to pave the way. > PDFs generated with pdflatex and similar aren't screen reader accessible, but I could read the LaTeX source code just fine. That's... sad. Is Word any better?

> Sorry you had to pave the way.

It's something I think we're all used to, and will likely always be the case, because non-elderly blind people are such a tiny minority (perhaps we're even over-represented here on HN).

Post reply on HN