3 ms·

Aren't academics smart enough to overlook the name and focus on the software itself, which is free and of very high quality?

PaulHoule 5y ago
Nope. They are more busy than you can imagine and don't have time to waste on things that aren't their specialties. Assuming the product is as good as you say it might take them 40 hours to really evaluate it. The product might be free but their time isn't. People have an expectation that GUI applications are bad, especially free ones. For instance, if you use Word much at all you would notice it is mysterious how the selections for "Bold", "Italic" and such work. It seems like your computer is possessed by the devil, fighting against you to select ranges of text in nonsensical ways. This isn't just a problem with Word but it is widespread in most applications that copy the same interface. (Like those HTML-in-HTML editors) I guess there is something broken about the conceptual model behind them; about once every other year I notice somebody else really gets it that there's a problem here, but most people seem to accept it unthinkingly.
- amichail 5y ago
  It's strange. CS academics should be interested in the latest software — especially software that was difficult to write. Why else did they major in computer science?
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    Now you're cooking with gas! People in computer science write papers. Writing software is incidental to that. In principle they are interested in reading the latest papers, but in no way are they going to spend time reading papers if it gets in the way of writing papers.
  - verdverm 5y ago
    Computer Science is a vast field. Most software is not interesting in a computer science mindset. The difference is partially attributed to science vs engineering. Even so, the latest software is rarely the best choice when the task is only tangentially related.
- amichail 5y ago
  The main TeXmacs author is a mathematician and the program has a very well thought out document model and editing operations. You won't find strange/unpredictable Word editing heuristics here.

PaulHoule 5y ago

Nope. They are more busy than you can imagine and don't have time to waste on things that aren't their specialties. Assuming the product is as good as you say it might take them 40 hours to really evaluate it. The product might be free but their time isn't. People have an expectation that GUI applications are bad, especially free ones. For instance, if you use Word much at all you would notice it is mysterious how the selections for "Bold", "Italic" and such work. It seems like your computer is possessed by the devil, fighting against you to select ranges of text in nonsensical ways. This isn't just a problem with Word but it is widespread in most applications that copy the same interface. (Like those HTML-in-HTML editors) I guess there is something broken about the conceptual model behind them; about once every other year I notice somebody else really gets it that there's a problem here, but most people seem to accept it unthinkingly.

amichail 5y ago
It's strange. CS academics should be interested in the latest software — especially software that was difficult to write. Why else did they major in computer science?
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  Now you're cooking with gas! People in computer science write papers. Writing software is incidental to that. In principle they are interested in reading the latest papers, but in no way are they going to spend time reading papers if it gets in the way of writing papers.
- verdverm 5y ago
  Computer Science is a vast field. Most software is not interesting in a computer science mindset. The difference is partially attributed to science vs engineering. Even so, the latest software is rarely the best choice when the task is only tangentially related.
amichail 5y ago
The main TeXmacs author is a mathematician and the program has a very well thought out document model and editing operations. You won't find strange/unpredictable Word editing heuristics here.