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The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

danielallington.net

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Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#181

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

cavDXF wrote: post #63

One passage made me a bit mad: "[...], but for now it is enough to observe that people who don’t know how to use a particular tool very well are being told to throw that tool away and learn to use an entirely new one on the grounds that it will enable them to do things that they could have done at least as well with the old one – which is (when you think about it) a little peculiar if the aim is really to help people…

> It's the same students in school tell all the time, when they question why they should learn math, though they are set to become an artist or editor or anything that seemingly does not involve math.

I never finished high school. Went on to study a bit of nutrition. I work in my trade (metal fabrication) operating a laser cutter, doing a lot of 2D CAD work. I can rebuilt a car engine or build a house, including all electrical and plumbing and brickwork. I've built boats, sailed, dived, I ski, rock climb, occasionally draw a thing with a pencil. I can bash out a simple tune on a piano. I can pull a decent shot of coffee on a commercial grade espresso machine.

Please tell me which bit of your useless math I didn't do has limited me in anyway I care about?

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#182

Post by e12e »

geezerjay wrote: post #175
e12e wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about math, but dtp packages like framemaker are actually a half-decent alternative to LaTeX. If you really want a word processor - I would recommend abiword over Ms word any day - but I still think you're better off in Lyx - but like all(?) Gui programs, it does seem to be easier to mess up your document (which could probably be fixed editing the underlying LaTeX - but if you're already comfortable doing th…

> Not sure about math, but dtp packages like framemaker are actually a half-decent alternative to LaTeX. It appears that a license for framemaker costs over $1200 while LaTeX is free. To command that sort of price, an alternative needs to be far more than a half-decent alternative.

True, framemaker was never cheap. I may also be conflating personal experience a bit with PageMaker or some other package - but I seem to recall FrameMaker was popular as a site licence as university. I did find this interesting review/preview of framemaker for Linux from 2000 - it was a beast - more than 20MB! :-)

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/previews/1812/1/

At any rate in the world of Free software, Scribus would probably be the dtp alternative that stands out.

For something in-between, Pagestream might be worth a look.

As for a commercial offering being expensive and only half-decent - that's pretty common for Free software - many Free software packages are incredible value. Things like zfs, postgresql, etc etc.

Re: The LaTeX Fetish (2016)

#183

Post by kusmi »

I don't know know if I missed it, it seems like author was really trying to cover all the arguments, but the Tex family languages are for hardcore typesetting automation. Author said all Latex docs have a characteristic look. And most typeset examples that I've seen on the web fit that description. Because for the most part they use the default settings, default libraries, and default fonts, etc. Maybe with some variation.

We can agree that everything that needs to be pinched and squeezed can be pinched and squeezed with Latex. So, creating stylish modern looking tables, full page width graphics overlayed with expensive commercial fonts, custom vector graphics and diagrams, is feasible. You would never even recognize it was done with latex. This makes sense at corporate scale painting reports, white papers, invoices, in company colors, logos, and styles. Churning hundreds of styled docs. That's the use case I see for Latex, but no one goes around showing these off, I assume because making styles like this is a job, and the styles themselves assets.

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