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I am happy somebody is working on this, but I really wish somebody would rewrite TeX and derivatives from scratch in a modern language. The syntax of LaTeX is m

I am happy somebody is working on this, but I really wish somebody would rewrite TeX and derivatives from scratch in a modern language. The syntax of LaTeX is mostly adequate, and should be kept so people don't have to relearn everything. But the list of other improvements that need to be made is a km long. * The backend should be in a language that allows for easier editing and package development. * Need modern bidirectional UTF8 font support. * Need the compiler to stop producing a bunch of extra files in the same folder, which is a significant adoption barrier. * Need a way to generate clean html output with nice css. * Tikz is great, but it would be excellent if it was possible to include the graphical output of any language by writing inline code (org-mode style). * Same for mathematics - if I can send input to Sage or Mathematica and print the results from within the tex files, life would be so much easier. * Beamer is interesting, but it is hard to make anything but rather bland scientific presentation in it. A framework for rapid design prototyping in beamer would help so much. * Etc etc

TheRealPomax 7y ago
It sounds like what you want is "something that isn't remotely what TeX was for, and what it's still really good at". Which is fine, of course, but not something a TeX engine should try to do. Maybe some kind of modular TeX-wrapping typeprocessing (not typesetting) environment.
jcelerier 7y ago
> * The backend should be in a language that allows for easier editing and package development. LuaTeX allows writing packages in Lua > * Need modern bidirectional UTF8 font support. LuaTeX supports bidir, not sure if you refer to something more specific > * Need the compiler to stop producing a bunch of extra files in the same folder, which is a significant adoption barrier. you can just run your build in a build folder like you would in C, etc ?
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  I know it's possible to have workarounds and I have used them as needed. But the workarounds still have bugs, or are OS specific (your third one for instance), and they don't solve the problem of slow compilation. There are also fundamental limits to TeX language such as the number of arguments to a function limited to 9 [1], or overloading functions is a pain [2], etc etc. The advantage of rewriting from scratch in a modern language is that these issues can all be dealt with without workarounds. [1] https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2132/how-to-define-a-command-that-takes-more-than-9-arguments https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2132/how-to-define-a... [2] https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/448877/check-number-of-arguments-in-a-command https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/448877/check-number-...
- rowanG077 7y ago
  Lua is really not a nice language...

TheRealPomax 7y ago

It sounds like what you want is "something that isn't remotely what TeX was for, and what it's still really good at". Which is fine, of course, but not something a TeX engine should try to do. Maybe some kind of modular TeX-wrapping typeprocessing (not typesetting) environment.

jcelerier 7y ago

> * The backend should be in a language that allows for easier editing and package development. LuaTeX allows writing packages in Lua > * Need modern bidirectional UTF8 font support. LuaTeX supports bidir, not sure if you refer to something more specific > * Need the compiler to stop producing a bunch of extra files in the same folder, which is a significant adoption barrier. you can just run your build in a build folder like you would in C, etc ?

abdullahkhalids 7y ago
I know it's possible to have workarounds and I have used them as needed. But the workarounds still have bugs, or are OS specific (your third one for instance), and they don't solve the problem of slow compilation. There are also fundamental limits to TeX language such as the number of arguments to a function limited to 9 [1], or overloading functions is a pain [2], etc etc. The advantage of rewriting from scratch in a modern language is that these issues can all be dealt with without workarounds. [1] https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2132/how-to-define-a-command-that-takes-more-than-9-arguments https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2132/how-to-define-a... [2] https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/448877/check-number-of-arguments-in-a-command https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/448877/check-number-...
rowanG077 7y ago
Lua is really not a nice language...