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Adding to this, LaTeX is entirely incapable of producing even remotely accessible PDFs. If you're extremely lucky, you might be able to copy a single word or ev
by franga2000 6y ago
Adding to this, LaTeX is entirely incapable of producing even remotely accessible PDFs. If you're extremely lucky, you might be able to copy a single word or even multiple, but line breaks, inline equations and basically anything else breaks it entirely, which is not only incredibly annoying for citing things, but makes it entirely unusable for visually-impaired people.
Additionally, if equations are the the main appeal of it, how have we not made anything better? Why can't I plug the same code that renders my paper into a solver or convert it into Julia and run it? Like, properly, not just by guessing. I get that *tex is a typesetting language, but we're not typesetters!
- filmor 6y agoMathematical notation is context-dependent and denser than code, you can't map directly from one to the other.
- vcxy 6y agoThe main appeal isn't merely equations. The appeal is that it produces the best typesetting for prose and equations both.
- ezluckyfree 6y agoIf publishers provided the TeX source, you could do this. I don't really see this as an issue. TeX is just a language that can be translated into PDFs for visual consumption well, but it could similarly be translated into audio or code (in the case of equations), we just can't do that because publishing TeX isn't something we do for some reason.
- franga2000 6y agoThe problem is that you really can't. Tex isn't semantic, it's visual. Even matrix transposition, one of the most basic things in linear algebra, is written differently by different people. I've seen plenty of people just write ^T, which requires an amount of contextual awareness a parser just cannot have to differentiate from just raising something to the power of "T".