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That's not a good comparison, because mixing your own chemicals for photo development adds more time, effort, and defect rate to the process. Becoming more pro

by p4wnc6 11y ago

That's not a good comparison, because mixing your own chemicals for photo development adds more time, effort, and defect rate to the process. Becoming more proficient with TeX saves time and makes for more re-usable typesetting structures, which allow you to accurately do what you want faster and faster. It's similar to using emacs or vim. You could say, "Why should programming devotees expect others to adopt those editors?" It's about productivity. I'm a productivity devotee and when I hear people use short-term thinking to discount how valuable the up-front costs for learning TeX (or emacs/vim, etc) are, it motivates me to help them see why it's not true. Of course, I don't want to be dogmatic either. If something works for you and your personal utility function discounts the value of things like TeX or emacs, that's fine.

amelius 11y ago
> It's about productivity. No it is about aesthetics, which are mostly irrelevant for 99% of all research papers.
- Spivak 11y ago
  It's not just aesthetics, having proper typesetting makes papers more accessible, easier to read and parse, the standard formatting makes understanding the layout of papers easier, there is a huge library of packages that cleanly abstract the task of rendering obscure symbols and complex mathematical formulas, and it automates the job of tracking figure, equation and reference citations to name just a few of the features. Fine, TeX is an ugly language that only a programmer could love, but in over twenty years nobody has yet been able to replace its expressive power and flexibility -- doc generators just compile to LaTeX and more user friendly GUIs like Lyx and TeXMaker have been written to ease the process of writing for end users, but the underlying format has yet to be replaced in over twenty years. Like Markdown, TeX rides the line between being able to be written by hand for greater flexibility and automatically generated for newbies. Unless you think that reading red text on a blue background in payprus would be an equally enjoyable reading experience it more than simple aesthetics.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - wonderlust 11y ago
    ... did I just read a rant about how enjoyability and simplicity are NOT aesthetics?
  - ninguem2 11y ago
    Are you related to the author of "The Joy of Tex"?
  - smsm42 11y ago
    You sound like aesthetics is a bad thing you need to disavow for some reason. > Fine, TeX is an ugly language that only a programmer could love, but in over twenty years nobody has yet been able to replace its expressive power and flexibility Which doesn't make it less ugly. If we can't cure common cold yet, that is no reason to praise it and making it sound as if it's a great thing. It is a problem and so is the need to use ugly language to produce aesthetically pleasing papers. The fact that we don't have solution for this problem yet does not turn it into non-problem. It just says nobody yet was good enough to solve it.
- kaitai 11y ago
  In my field, equations and diagrams are relevant for 99% of research papers. I would poke my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon if I had to spend the rest of my life trying to do this in Word.
criley2 11y ago
It's about productivity for the 1% or 5% of stars who understand it and eat it and breathe it. For the 90%+, it's an arbitrary checkbox requirement to be checked on the path towards something else.
- RBerenguel 11y ago
  I don't eat and breathe LaTeX (although I try to use it for any typesetting needs: after a few years in academia it's much faster to do it this way than to open "Word") but the productivity enhancement on writing while forgetting of how it looks and just having to think about how you want it to look and letting the system handle it for you is invaluable.
SturgeonsLaw 11y ago
> It's similar to using emacs or vim Actually, that's a great comparison. I don't use either of those (yeah, I said it) because of their arcane interfaces. I don't doubt for a second that wizards with those programs, and LaTeX, can do great things, but IDEs exist for the same reason word processors do - to make it easier to focus on creating.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  Yes, but if you pay the up-front cost of learning the interface (which, far from being arcane, is actually designed the way it is because it's ergonomic), then you can focus even more on creating than the person using the IDE. While they are stuck debugging some autocomplete error in Eclipse, you've already finished your code project, wrote a letter to your mom, dabbled in an interactive R sessions to teach yourself R, and played Tetris, all without touching the mouse. IDEs exist for the same reason 7/11 exists. Convenience. You pay a higher price (lost productivity) to experience certain comforts (clicking a button instead of issuing a keystroke command). My experience has universally been that IDEs only get in the way of focusing on creating. They might be necessary when you are literally just beginning with software and you need a lot of scaffolding to help you -- and I don't think anyone would begrudge university students using IDEs. But not using a power editor once you are an experienced programmer is hard to understand. I mean, it's so important that it was even included as a whole chapter in The Pragmatic Programmer. Paying the up-front costs of proficient editor usage is like paying the up-front costs of wearing braces so you can have straight teeth or wearing correcting shoes so you can walk properly. Of course it's more convenient in an absolute sense to simply not wear braces or corrective shoes. But that's not the point. The point is that the value you get from the outcome (e.g. straight teeth, proper walking, or dramatically increased productivity when developing) is far greater than the cost. In other words, I think you're using a hyperbolic discount function. You are placing such a high value on absolutely immediate "focus on creating" that you incorrectly discount how much more focus on creating you would be able to do with the power of a real editor framework.
smsm42 11y ago
It's a trade off. Getting proficient with a new subject requires time and mental space, one that could be otherwise used for doing other things, usually things much more interesting to you unless you happen to be excited by doing TeX stuff. That's why one would usually opt for "just do whatever is needed to get over with it". > It's similar to using emacs or vim. You could say, "Why should programming devotees expect others to adopt those editors?" Exactly. There were times when I wrote emacs lisp and vim macros, and had time to dive into arcane mechanics of it. I don't have that luxury anymore. I need the editor to just work and do what I need to be done, without me investing significant time into it. Maybe if I spend couple of days on learning stuff about vim I could do in one minute when now I do in ten, but I'm not sure it pays off anymore, and frankly I have more interesting things to learn. I do use vim (not emacs anymore) but for me I came to the conclusion that added value of diving into the arcana with the goal of being more efficient later vs. brute-forcing through the immediate tasks is just not worth it. Later you'd need a different thing than you thought you'd need anyway. And, note, I am a programmer. I can imagine how less interested would be a person who does not spend their days digging into the code anyway.
anigbrowl 11y ago
Becoming more proficient with TeX saves time and makes for more re-usable typesetting structures, which allow you to accurately do what you want faster and faster. Not necessarily, there's an opportunity cost to all the time you spend become proficient with TeX. If there are other products that offer sufficient control over typesetting with less time and effort, and you don't anticipate needing the advanced features that are unavailable in competing products, then becoming a TeX expert is a complete waste of time. I'm happy to concede that it's probably the best tool and certainly the best value for money, but if someone's needs are quite limited then an adequate-but-easy-to-use tool may be preferable to the superior-but-user-unfriendly one.

by p4wnc6 11y ago

amelius 11y ago

> It's about productivity. No it is about aesthetics, which are mostly irrelevant for 99% of all research papers.

Spivak 11y ago
It's not just aesthetics, having proper typesetting makes papers more accessible, easier to read and parse, the standard formatting makes understanding the layout of papers easier, there is a huge library of packages that cleanly abstract the task of rendering obscure symbols and complex mathematical formulas, and it automates the job of tracking figure, equation and reference citations to name just a few of the features. Fine, TeX is an ugly language that only a programmer could love, but in over twenty years nobody has yet been able to replace its expressive power and flexibility -- doc generators just compile to LaTeX and more user friendly GUIs like Lyx and TeXMaker have been written to ease the process of writing for end users, but the underlying format has yet to be replaced in over twenty years. Like Markdown, TeX rides the line between being able to be written by hand for greater flexibility and automatically generated for newbies. Unless you think that reading red text on a blue background in payprus would be an equally enjoyable reading experience it more than simple aesthetics.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- wonderlust 11y ago
  ... did I just read a rant about how enjoyability and simplicity are NOT aesthetics?
- ninguem2 11y ago
  Are you related to the author of "The Joy of Tex"?
- smsm42 11y ago
  You sound like aesthetics is a bad thing you need to disavow for some reason. > Fine, TeX is an ugly language that only a programmer could love, but in over twenty years nobody has yet been able to replace its expressive power and flexibility Which doesn't make it less ugly. If we can't cure common cold yet, that is no reason to praise it and making it sound as if it's a great thing. It is a problem and so is the need to use ugly language to produce aesthetically pleasing papers. The fact that we don't have solution for this problem yet does not turn it into non-problem. It just says nobody yet was good enough to solve it.
kaitai 11y ago
In my field, equations and diagrams are relevant for 99% of research papers. I would poke my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon if I had to spend the rest of my life trying to do this in Word.

criley2 11y ago

It's about productivity for the 1% or 5% of stars who understand it and eat it and breathe it. For the 90%+, it's an arbitrary checkbox requirement to be checked on the path towards something else.

RBerenguel 11y ago
I don't eat and breathe LaTeX (although I try to use it for any typesetting needs: after a few years in academia it's much faster to do it this way than to open "Word") but the productivity enhancement on writing while forgetting of how it looks and just having to think about how you want it to look and letting the system handle it for you is invaluable.

SturgeonsLaw 11y ago

> It's similar to using emacs or vim Actually, that's a great comparison. I don't use either of those (yeah, I said it) because of their arcane interfaces. I don't doubt for a second that wizards with those programs, and LaTeX, can do great things, but IDEs exist for the same reason word processors do - to make it easier to focus on creating.

p4wnc6 11y ago
Yes, but if you pay the up-front cost of learning the interface (which, far from being arcane, is actually designed the way it is because it's ergonomic), then you can focus even more on creating than the person using the IDE. While they are stuck debugging some autocomplete error in Eclipse, you've already finished your code project, wrote a letter to your mom, dabbled in an interactive R sessions to teach yourself R, and played Tetris, all without touching the mouse. IDEs exist for the same reason 7/11 exists. Convenience. You pay a higher price (lost productivity) to experience certain comforts (clicking a button instead of issuing a keystroke command). My experience has universally been that IDEs only get in the way of focusing on creating. They might be necessary when you are literally just beginning with software and you need a lot of scaffolding to help you -- and I don't think anyone would begrudge university students using IDEs. But not using a power editor once you are an experienced programmer is hard to understand. I mean, it's so important that it was even included as a whole chapter in The Pragmatic Programmer. Paying the up-front costs of proficient editor usage is like paying the up-front costs of wearing braces so you can have straight teeth or wearing correcting shoes so you can walk properly. Of course it's more convenient in an absolute sense to simply not wear braces or corrective shoes. But that's not the point. The point is that the value you get from the outcome (e.g. straight teeth, proper walking, or dramatically increased productivity when developing) is far greater than the cost. In other words, I think you're using a hyperbolic discount function. You are placing such a high value on absolutely immediate "focus on creating" that you incorrectly discount how much more focus on creating you would be able to do with the power of a real editor framework.

smsm42 11y ago

It's a trade off. Getting proficient with a new subject requires time and mental space, one that could be otherwise used for doing other things, usually things much more interesting to you unless you happen to be excited by doing TeX stuff. That's why one would usually opt for "just do whatever is needed to get over with it". > It's similar to using emacs or vim. You could say, "Why should programming devotees expect others to adopt those editors?" Exactly. There were times when I wrote emacs lisp and vim macros, and had time to dive into arcane mechanics of it. I don't have that luxury anymore. I need the editor to just work and do what I need to be done, without me investing significant time into it. Maybe if I spend couple of days on learning stuff about vim I could do in one minute when now I do in ten, but I'm not sure it pays off anymore, and frankly I have more interesting things to learn. I do use vim (not emacs anymore) but for me I came to the conclusion that added value of diving into the arcana with the goal of being more efficient later vs. brute-forcing through the immediate tasks is just not worth it. Later you'd need a different thing than you thought you'd need anyway. And, note, I am a programmer. I can imagine how less interested would be a person who does not spend their days digging into the code anyway.

anigbrowl 11y ago

Becoming more proficient with TeX saves time and makes for more re-usable typesetting structures, which allow you to accurately do what you want faster and faster. Not necessarily, there's an opportunity cost to all the time you spend become proficient with TeX. If there are other products that offer sufficient control over typesetting with less time and effort, and you don't anticipate needing the advanced features that are unavailable in competing products, then becoming a TeX expert is a complete waste of time. I'm happy to concede that it's probably the best tool and certainly the best value for money, but if someone's needs are quite limited then an adequate-but-easy-to-use tool may be preferable to the superior-but-user-unfriendly one.