3 ms·

In the 90s, I used to imagine the future to be one where "browsers" would be much less than combined JavaScript execution / DOM+CSS layout engines and hence abl

by gjvc 5y ago

In the 90s, I used to imagine the future to be one where "browsers" would be much less than combined JavaScript execution / DOM+CSS layout engines and hence able to do much more by downloading (signed) decoders/renderers on-demand for different content types, of which DVI would be just one of many. There are still huge conceptual leaps to be made in the notion of a computer as a document creator and content rendering, and Smalltalk provides some clues in that direction, though I doubt we'll see it in my lifetime, considering the weight of the last twenty-five years will make it difficult to change course. The relevance of the above flight of fantasy to your point is that LaTeX, for all its awkwardness, is absolutely a local maxima in document creation, and I love seeing its results appear from the markup, knowing that it's following the numbers precisely, as if by magic, and print them out and marvel at the quality of the fonts close-up, and we need more such systems with which to create and render content, before denting the DOM+CSS hegemony in the manner I described above.

BlueTemplar 5y ago
The whole issue with LaTeX ia that it renders to PDFs, which aren't appropriate these days any more for most electronic documents because you want reflowable content rather than fixed layout. And (m)HTML is great for that and can include other content types : https://eater.net/quaternions https://eater.net/quaternions
- GiovanniP 5y ago
  As far as I know the main issue there is that LaTeX is a Turing-complete language and no reliable complete export filter can exist, so in particular one cannot export reliably all of LaTeX to HTML
  - NotOscarWilde 5y ago
    I don't think Turing-completeness implies any issues when converting programs between equally powerful automata. In fact, a lot of results in the theory of automata / early computational complexity take a form of converting all programs of machine A -- in fact the machine itself -- in order to run it on machine B.
    - DemocracyFTW 5y ago
      In theory there should be no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there often is. TeX's syntax itself being Turing-complete means you can barely start to do static analysis on the code before hitting a wall you can only get over by installing a huge fraction of the ~1GB download that is TeXLive. "Being theoretically possible" is in no way orthogonal to "impractical in many or most circumstances".
    - GiovanniP 5y ago
      Please take a look at the following comments thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27820466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27820466, in particular at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822662 where Massimiliano Gubinelli (one of the main TeXmacs developers) explains the issue.
- ansgri 5y ago
  Please show me a reflowable document with decent typographics. No, seriously, why browsers don’t implement fully-featured layout algorithms? Until then, I’d prefer a well-typeset PDF over an average website for a longer-form and graphics-rich content. Also, those are naturally usable offline, are durable and have no interactive annoyances.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    Your point is spot-on. Reflowable text is incompatible with most scientific writing and with anything more complex than simple prose.
    - ansgri 5y ago
      I didn’t say this. I believe it’s current implementations that are not good enough. Some ebook reading software comes close.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Hmm, do you have any more specific examples of typographics being a deal breaker ? MHTML (aka .eml) is usable offline too (except for some reason by Firefox ?!?), while PDFs are horrible on screens smaller than the width of a page. I'm not sure what interactive annoyances on scientific websites you're talking about - the most problematic ones these days are those with the assumption of a working Java or Flash plugin (and if they start to be plagued by irrelevant scripts it's much easier so far to block JavaScript in a browser than in a pdf reader), meanwhile many pdf readers don't even have any animation support, which is about content rather than presentation ! (As a metaphor : would you support a format unable to show pictures ?)
- gjvc 5y ago
  I'm afraid you rather missed the point in the last paragraph -- "we need more such systems with which to create and render content, before denting the DOM+CSS hegemony". Fixed format is much preferable for textbooks or other publications which have many diagrams as part of the body text.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Textbooks, sure - other publications with many diagrams - that's my whole point, no (the fixed format often makes understanding worse because they can't just put the diagram in the specific spot that refers to it, and finding that spot is additional work) - also pdfs only really support fixed, non-interactive diagrams.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
> hence able to do much more by downloading (signed) decoders/renderers on-demand for different content types, of which DVI would be just one of many. I added DVI rendering to NCSA Mosaic in 1994. Didn't go down well with anyone. Probably a good thing overall, but I still think it was a nice idea (multiple different renderers).

by gjvc 5y ago

BlueTemplar 5y ago

The whole issue with LaTeX ia that it renders to PDFs, which aren't appropriate these days any more for most electronic documents because you want reflowable content rather than fixed layout. And (m)HTML is great for that and can include other content types : https://eater.net/quaternions https://eater.net/quaternions

GiovanniP 5y ago
As far as I know the main issue there is that LaTeX is a Turing-complete language and no reliable complete export filter can exist, so in particular one cannot export reliably all of LaTeX to HTML
- NotOscarWilde 5y ago
  I don't think Turing-completeness implies any issues when converting programs between equally powerful automata. In fact, a lot of results in the theory of automata / early computational complexity take a form of converting all programs of machine A -- in fact the machine itself -- in order to run it on machine B.
  - DemocracyFTW 5y ago
    In theory there should be no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there often is. TeX's syntax itself being Turing-complete means you can barely start to do static analysis on the code before hitting a wall you can only get over by installing a huge fraction of the ~1GB download that is TeXLive. "Being theoretically possible" is in no way orthogonal to "impractical in many or most circumstances".
  - GiovanniP 5y ago
    Please take a look at the following comments thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27820466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27820466, in particular at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822662 where Massimiliano Gubinelli (one of the main TeXmacs developers) explains the issue.
ansgri 5y ago
Please show me a reflowable document with decent typographics. No, seriously, why browsers don’t implement fully-featured layout algorithms? Until then, I’d prefer a well-typeset PDF over an average website for a longer-form and graphics-rich content. Also, those are naturally usable offline, are durable and have no interactive annoyances.
- leephillips 5y ago
  Your point is spot-on. Reflowable text is incompatible with most scientific writing and with anything more complex than simple prose.
  - ansgri 5y ago
    I didn’t say this. I believe it’s current implementations that are not good enough. Some ebook reading software comes close.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Hmm, do you have any more specific examples of typographics being a deal breaker ? MHTML (aka .eml) is usable offline too (except for some reason by Firefox ?!?), while PDFs are horrible on screens smaller than the width of a page. I'm not sure what interactive annoyances on scientific websites you're talking about - the most problematic ones these days are those with the assumption of a working Java or Flash plugin (and if they start to be plagued by irrelevant scripts it's much easier so far to block JavaScript in a browser than in a pdf reader), meanwhile many pdf readers don't even have any animation support, which is about content rather than presentation ! (As a metaphor : would you support a format unable to show pictures ?)
gjvc 5y ago
I'm afraid you rather missed the point in the last paragraph -- "we need more such systems with which to create and render content, before denting the DOM+CSS hegemony". Fixed format is much preferable for textbooks or other publications which have many diagrams as part of the body text.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Textbooks, sure - other publications with many diagrams - that's my whole point, no (the fixed format often makes understanding worse because they can't just put the diagram in the specific spot that refers to it, and finding that spot is additional work) - also pdfs only really support fixed, non-interactive diagrams.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

> hence able to do much more by downloading (signed) decoders/renderers on-demand for different content types, of which DVI would be just one of many. I added DVI rendering to NCSA Mosaic in 1994. Didn't go down well with anyone. Probably a good thing overall, but I still think it was a nice idea (multiple different renderers).