> How to fix it?
The problem is simple: client/server model
The solution then is to migrate towards an alternative.
Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
31–40 of 154 posts
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#32Pretty decent rant. I share some of the pain as laid out in the article.
As a long time troll myself, I think the whe LaTeX is just a vehicle.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#33I agree with everything but the latex part. Something like HTML 3.2 is a better fit for hypertext documents. There's no need to re-invent anything, only remove the feature creep and cancerous bullshit.
That's easier said than done though, with everyone so invested in this modern game of "emperor's new clothes" that is the modern web.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#34I think PDF should be replaced with some SVG-based document format. HTMLs inability to model the concept of "pages" is something I'm missing from current web. Also, a LaTeX-style document creation language rendering into SVG would be really cool.
I would be fine if I could somehow generate an index for print. CSS kind of supports it, but that is only implemented by a few proprietary tools (yay web "standards").
Fully agree. And nowadays the HTML -> Print workflow is also used for generation of PDF or ebooks and it is extremely hacky. There should be more standard way to do it.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#35Must watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4dYwEyjZcY
The problem with HTML is the dom and all the clutter around it. It's not really readable, and require browsers to take decisions for ambiguous markup, which involves bloat.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#36PDF fetishism and blindly disliking HTML because it's associated with the current web is such an old trope. HTML and CSS are good at making hypertext documents, they are in fact much better at that than at making applications, despite that being the most popular use case lately. No one is making you write web apps, websites are still first class citizens for web browsers.
Exactly, HTML would be amazing if people weren't trying to use browsers as application runtime environments.
So write an application multiple times in multiple languages, package it into different packages, and distribute them through app stores? Oh, and desktop Linux users are out of luck because their market share is so tiny, and their distros are so numerous and chaotic that no-one is going to bother spending time and money on building applications for those poor sods. Is this the idea?
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#37The author's argument is essentially,
> Billionaires should pay their taxes so we can finance giving everyone basic income, creators won't have to monetize the web, and humanity can live in peace.
Ah, what remarkably wishful naivete. There are so many faulty assumptions in that premise.
It assumes billionaires paying taxes would finance universal basic income. It would not.
It assumes there will always be billionaires to tax. But if we remove competitive incentives, there may well be few or no billionaires. (It's a testament to capitalism that it has not only raised myriads out of poverty, but also created legions of super wealthy.)
It assumes people who receive universal basic income will "no longer be pitted against each other." But competition will always exist; it's intrinsic to nature itself.
The author assumes people will be more virtuous if only we didn't have to work for a living. This is not true. Humans are terrible, and most of us are not bright creative luminaries who'd spend our time in productive or creative pursuits. Rather, most of us are lazy and selfish by nature at best, self-destructive at worst.
It assumes UBI would create peace for humanity. This is not true. Fighting, competition, and resource claiming is intrinsic to nature.
In short, this article has a clickbait headline -- it really has little to do with LaTeX -- and a remarkably naive conclusion.
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#38The author's argument is essentially, > Billionaires should pay their taxes so we can finance giving everyone basic income, creators won't have to monetize the web, and humanity can live in peace. Ah, what remarkably wishful naivete. There are so many faulty assumptions in that premise. It assumes billionaires paying taxes would finance universal basic income. It would not. It assumes there will always be billionaire…
You seem to believe that billionaires have each added billions of dollars of value to humanity.
> Rather, most of us are lazy and selfish by nature at best, self-destructive at worst.
"Speak for yourself."
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#39the disconnect here is that the web browser isn't a document viewer (but the author here wants it to be just that). and yeah, html is a _document markup language_, but the problem is that it's not what we _actually want_ - we want cross-platform, sandboxed applications with instantaneous delivery. practically no one really cares about "hypertext" - that's not where the majority of value for most people lies.
>"we want cross-platform, sandboxed applications with instantaneous delivery"
My version of "we" wants:
a) Plain websites that are just documents with links and navigation.
b) Yes browser based applications please.
c) Yes native apps please as the browser is severely restricted (and for good reasons) on what it allows those apps to do.
Each part is equally important to "we"
Re: Web4 Should Run on LaTeX
#40I've used LaTeX for the duration of my Bachlor studies. The results are superior to Word, but that's just about where the benefits end. It's a nightmare to use and I don't see how investing time to learn it will benefit me in the long run.
Yeah LaTeX needs some actually useful error messages first before it can be considered for something that people use widely. It's crash logs are even less useful than C++ and that's saying something. You basically have to do guesswork to figure out what might be wrong if the damn thing won't compile. My BSc thesis wasn't the first thing I wrote in it, but it likely will be the last one. The idea is good, the executio…
Error messages are like the least horrible wart in LaTeX's mile-long list of warts.