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

Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

cynicusrex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 154 posts

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#101

Post by ttybird »

dredmorbius wrote: post #87
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by “runtime compiled”, exactly?

With LaTeX, the document creator must compile the document , through a fairly persnickety processor (latex, tetex, or an equivalent). Whilst that may still pass poorly-structured documents and result in poorly-formed output, straight-up illegal syntax won't make. HTML has no such requirements. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from posting that in the first place. Throw something at a browser, and it will try i…

"must"? A web4 browser would probably use a "runtime compiled" implementation.

"Whilst that may still pass poorly-structured documents and result in poorly-formed output" - this by the way happens much more often with LaTeX compared to html in my experience.

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#102

Post by JasonCannon »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #85
jansommer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please suggest a cross platform framework that doesn't come with accessibility issues, that also allows you to create as rich ui's like what you can do in a browser, and without various licenses that restrict what you can do with your code? Something that supports Android, iOS, Linux, Windows and MacOS.

I feel that it's cheating here to include android and ios in this list, since so much stuff that is developed either: * is only for those two (and sometimes only one of those) platforms * the preferred "version" on those platforms in an app, rather than web-based It's clear from the scope of the mobile app market that there's a huge marketplace for a kind of application that essentially never existed on desktops. It…

And yet HTML+CSS+JS which is so hated for making applications handles the use case of working across mobile and desktop almost perfectly. Maybe it's not just because we don't want to learn real programming like the grandparent post insinuated and instead a perfectly viable solution to the problem at hand.

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#103

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

JasonCannon wrote: post #102
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that it's cheating here to include android and ios in this list, since so much stuff that is developed either: * is only for those two (and sometimes only one of those) platforms * the preferred "version" on those platforms in an app, rather than web-based It's clear from the scope of the mobile app market that there's a huge marketplace for a kind of application that essentially never existed on desktops. It…

And yet HTML+CSS+JS which is so hated for making applications handles the use case of working across mobile and desktop almost perfectly. Maybe it's not just because we don't want to learn real programming like the grandparent post insinuated and instead a perfectly viable solution to the problem at hand.

If it is handled so perfectly by web tech, why do mobile apps exist?

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#104

Post by sto_hristo »

mempko wrote: post #71
sto_hristo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many developers in the industry have simply realized that the flexibility of html/css/js is simply unmatched by any other technology out there. Nothing else out there has been subjected to such extreme levels of scrutiny the web has. Nothing. Afaik, even the Dragon capsules use it for the UI layer. But since you're such a boi genius, make something that can match and get ahead of it and i'm sure everyone will jump on…

Pyramids were also built with a lot of effort. But in the end it was a pile of stones. Architecture was created when labor and material saving technology like the arch was invented. We are in the pyramid phase with the web.

Well since you know what phase we're in, and that we're in a phase even, then surely you must know what and when the revolution is. So cut the chatter and get us there. Why waste time?

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#105

Post by GiovanniP »

dnautics wrote: post #79
dredmorbius wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LaTeX is not equivalent to PDF, though that is one publishing format it supports. HTML lacks numerous features which a first-class document-specification language should have, including grid layouts (only very recently possible), footnotes and sidenotes, and formulae. The promise of LaTeX is that documents could be defined strictly in semantic terms, though my belief is that this would last for approximately 37.229 m…

> The promise of LaTeX is that documents could be defined strictly in semantic terms, though my belief is that this would last for approximately 37.229 minutes after such a proposal actually hit the Web. I mean, that already failed for LaTeX. To me it's kind of an unwieldy pile of wierd imperative imports. I did write my thesis in it, but for the most part it was "smash these imports together, pray for the best, if i…

> I mean, that already failed for LaTeX. To me it's kind of an unwieldy pile of wierd imperative imports

You need to try TeXmacs (which, despite its name, is not based on TeX ;-) ). www.texmacs.org

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#106

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

pharke wrote: post #98
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or target the JVM, ship jar files, and solve the problem ~25 years ago.

We need an improvement, not a regression.

Jar files are a single file portable to all major platforms (and many minor), that can run offline and have entirely acceptable performance with modern versions and modern hardware (i.e. slower than C but perfectly good if JS in a browser is the comparison). They have inferior security vs browser sandboxing but better no worse than a native binary. Other than being "old", what exactly is the regression?

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#108

Post by thrower123 »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #106
pharke wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need an improvement, not a regression.

Jar files are a single file portable to all major platforms (and many minor), that can run offline and have entirely acceptable performance with modern versions and modern hardware (i.e. slower than C but perfectly good if JS in a browser is the comparison). They have inferior security vs browser sandboxing but better no worse than a native binary. Other than being "old", what exactly is the regression?

I wish we still had applets. They sucked on dial-up, but that's not really a problem anymore.

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#109

Post by p2p_astroturf »

rchaud wrote: post #77
swiley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, HTML would be amazing if people weren't trying to use browsers as application runtime environments.

So we shouldn't have had Youtube, Vimeo etc. until W3C got around to making part of the official spec in 2010? The web is great because people kept pushing its limits and weren't arbitrarily held back by bureaucrats. Even though Apple and Google have spent untold billions to push the "there's an app for that" line of thinking, the web has survived.

Your insane perspective and the fact that it is common, is why the internet sucks.

1. Youtube is just a generic video hoster, of which many came before, during, and will come after. As for the whole "pretend Youtube is a thing" thing, I can't remember one actual good video from a "content creator" ever. It's all circle jerking and quick videos on a topic based on least effort.

2. tag has never had a single good implementation. They are all bugged and 100x slower/clunkier than using the built in menu on a CRT TV from the early 90s.

3. Yes, the web would be better if it was just static content. Even without tag. The primary use of a tag is clickbait (actually, almost nobody uses a tag because they don't want to host video, and instead use a youtube embed, so is not even used in practice). For anything else, like movies, porn, etc, it's 1000x more convenient to just download the video and watch it offline in a real video player like MPV. Web browsers still cannot even turn off that stupid "you are now in full screen" banner at the top of the screen, which fortifies my point that is not good for what it is intended for: short one-off clips scattered throughout web pages.

4. The whole idea that it's hard to have a video tag is a product of licesnsing braindamage and the clusterfuck of video encoding standards.

5. The web is not great, and I try to avoid it as much as possible. Using a god damn terminal emulator (the most braindamaged obsolete shit in the world) is 1000x more pleasant than using a web browser.

Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX

#110

Post by dredmorbius »

ttybird wrote: post #100
dredmorbius wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither are native first-class elements of plain HTML.

Nor a "first-class" TeX element either. \footnote is just a macro.

We're discussing LaTeX.

TeX itself is a set of typesetting primitives. LaTeX is a set of structurally-semantic, document-oriented macros built on TeX.

Post reply on HN