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I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

fransskarman.com

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Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#51

Post by generationP »

porcoda wrote: post #47
shermantanktop wrote: post #16

Why do CS doctoral candidates have such a fascination with typesetting? I mean, be into whatever you’re into, I guess. But as soon as someone starts talking about LaTEX and how they spent months on their macros, I think “another hapless victim has fallen into LaTEX’s trap.” It’s like an ant lion that feeds on procrastinating students.

Not all of us fell into that trap! My dissertation was written almost entirely using a default document class and a handful of packages, and only towards the end did I apply the university document style to come into compliance. I had more than enough to do on the subject of the PhD and didn’t have the patience to burn time on typesetting or fiddling with macros. I’ve found in the decades since then that my most prod…

Tikz is misplaced in this list; it is how you make any kind of vector drawings in LaTeX. It's not the only way, but perhaps the best documented and most expressive one. If you have any such drawings in your work, you won't get around putting some effort into it. Not comparable with boxed theorems or fancy headings.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#52

Post by generationP »

shermantanktop wrote: post #16

Why do CS doctoral candidates have such a fascination with typesetting? I mean, be into whatever you’re into, I guess. But as soon as someone starts talking about LaTEX and how they spent months on their macros, I think “another hapless victim has fallen into LaTEX’s trap.” It’s like an ant lion that feeds on procrastinating students.

I guess monks were procrastinating likewise when they illuminated their manuscripts.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#53

Post by Waterluvian »

wenc wrote: post #27
shermantanktop wrote: post #16

Why do CS doctoral candidates have such a fascination with typesetting? I mean, be into whatever you’re into, I guess. But as soon as someone starts talking about LaTEX and how they spent months on their macros, I think “another hapless victim has fallen into LaTEX’s trap.” It’s like an ant lion that feeds on procrastinating students.

It's because LaTeX gives us a sense of legitimacy. (it's also why people go overboard with math notation in LaTeX documents, even when prose is more appropriate). It produces documents that look like those produced by professors, and luminaries in the field. If you write equations in Word Equation Editor, your work just doesn't look very serious. It's the same joy I felt when I laser-printed my first newsletter desig…

I did this once in undergrad. Used Word to make my term paper two columns and all formatted like a journal article. Felt cool. Felt legitimate. But I then felt kinda embarrassed and never really shared it with anyone.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#54

Post by yencabulator »

unbelievr wrote: post #46
shermantanktop wrote: post #16

Why do CS doctoral candidates have such a fascination with typesetting? I mean, be into whatever you’re into, I guess. But as soon as someone starts talking about LaTEX and how they spent months on their macros, I think “another hapless victim has fallen into LaTEX’s trap.” It’s like an ant lion that feeds on procrastinating students.

Here it's typical that a thesis will be printed as a book, and it's that book that will be evaluated. For PhDs, there's a doctoral defence in front of a committee, peers and other interested parties and they're all given the book. Usually the process for ordering books is that you send them a PDF with embedded fonts inside it, and it's made at the university's printing house. They will handle distribution etc. So you…

WYSIWYG means what you're editing looks like the end result; LaTex and Typst are at the opposite end of the scale, being languages that compile into layout. No, a preview window does not count as WYSIWYG.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#55

Post by shermantanktop »

wyager wrote: post #31
shermantanktop wrote: post #16

Why do CS doctoral candidates have such a fascination with typesetting? I mean, be into whatever you’re into, I guess. But as soon as someone starts talking about LaTEX and how they spent months on their macros, I think “another hapless victim has fallen into LaTEX’s trap.” It’s like an ant lion that feeds on procrastinating students.

> Why do CS doctoral candidates have such a fascination with typesetting? Why does anyone care about typesetting? Probably because they spend a lot of time working with text and have therefore developed a level of taste. Just because the bottom 80% of consumers have zero taste and will accept any slop you give them doesn't mean there isn't value in doing something only appreciated by the top 20%. In any field, not ju…

I wonder if any doctoral defense has hinged on how refined the typesetting was. Probably. It’s the sort of ritual humiliation that academia specializes in.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#56

Post by shermantanktop »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #38
wenc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because LaTeX gives us a sense of legitimacy. (it's also why people go overboard with math notation in LaTeX documents, even when prose is more appropriate). It produces documents that look like those produced by professors, and luminaries in the field. If you write equations in Word Equation Editor, your work just doesn't look very serious. It's the same joy I felt when I laser-printed my first newsletter desig…

Most universities don’t formally train their STEM students in technical writing. At the graduate level, one is basically at the mercy of one’s advisor’s taste, for better or (usually) for worse.

Having tutored CS undergrads on writing, the lack of training (or care, or perceived relevance) was painfully obvious. Many were semi-literate wrt to English prose.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#58

Post by efitz »

shermantanktop wrote: post #16

Why do CS doctoral candidates have such a fascination with typesetting? I mean, be into whatever you’re into, I guess. But as soon as someone starts talking about LaTEX and how they spent months on their macros, I think “another hapless victim has fallen into LaTEX’s trap.” It’s like an ant lion that feeds on procrastinating students.

I have often thought that LaTEX' distinctive font and formatting is either a virtue signal or an in-group signal.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#59

Post by bjourne »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #38
wenc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because LaTeX gives us a sense of legitimacy. (it's also why people go overboard with math notation in LaTeX documents, even when prose is more appropriate). It produces documents that look like those produced by professors, and luminaries in the field. If you write equations in Word Equation Editor, your work just doesn't look very serious. It's the same joy I felt when I laser-printed my first newsletter desig…

Most universities don’t formally train their STEM students in technical writing. At the graduate level, one is basically at the mercy of one’s advisor’s taste, for better or (usually) for worse.

That may be true in US universities, but in Europe students have to write technical reports in almost every course.

Re: I wrote my PhD Thesis in Typst

#60

Post by Jap2-0 »

pdpi wrote: post #35
wenc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because LaTeX gives us a sense of legitimacy. (it's also why people go overboard with math notation in LaTeX documents, even when prose is more appropriate). It produces documents that look like those produced by professors, and luminaries in the field. If you write equations in Word Equation Editor, your work just doesn't look very serious. It's the same joy I felt when I laser-printed my first newsletter desig…

> If you write equations in Word Equation Editor, your work just doesn't look very serious. Haven't tried it in a while, but, last I checked, Word Equation Editor output didn't look serious because it looked janky and look like it wasn't really done in a "professional" tool. Part of that is a self-fulfilling prophecy of course, LaTeX output looks right in part because it's what people have been reading for decades, b…

Yet Word is leagues ahead of Google docs... (shudders)
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