4 ms·

I have a lot of fond memories of working with LaTeX in the 90s in my undergrad. These days I wouldn't use LaTeX because I want something quick and dirty.I am no

I have a lot of fond memories of working with LaTeX in the 90s in my undergrad. These days I wouldn't use LaTeX because I want something quick and dirty.I am not investing a lot of time in writing documents that people are not going to spend a lot of time reading. That said, The Lamport book I used heavily in my undergrad still has a place on my bookshelf.

azalemeth 5y ago
Arguably if you spend a lot of time writing a document it becomes more likely that others are going to read it. I am a peer-reviewer and an editor on a few academic journals. In my field, a mix of authors use [Xe](La)TeX and Word. There's a definite quality bias towards the TeX articles -- not because of the typesetting per se but rather because it's indicative of a lot of time spent carefully preparing a document to a standard. I'm sure others in similar fields have similar experiences.
OneOneOneOne 5y ago
I love my 86 Lamport. The cartoons add such a nice touch.
- DemocracyFTW 5y ago
  See, that might be cultural background or whatnot, I don't know, but some people find those cartoons to be a nice touch, and they admire the clarity of exposition of The TeXbook. I'm the proud owner of the entire 6 vol Computers and Typesetting series (of which the former title is vol A), and have worked through sizable portions of those. I also read mot of the 680 pages of Knuth's Digital Typography monograph. I also owned one LaTeX book at some point. I admire the depth of Knuth's knowledge (typographic and otherwise), the sheer diligence, his quest for quality, all of that. Those lion doodles though, the author's urge to land another witty remark, come up with another finely crafted reference, and how he's prone to hint at stuff instead of writing a proper documentation are not aspects of his work that I enjoy.

4 ms·

I have a lot of fond memories of working with LaTeX in the 90s in my undergrad. These days I wouldn't use LaTeX because I want something quick and dirty.I am no

by ToddWBurgess 5y ago

azalemeth 5y ago
Arguably if you spend a lot of time writing a document it becomes more likely that others are going to read it. I am a peer-reviewer and an editor on a few academic journals. In my field, a mix of authors use [Xe](La)TeX and Word. There's a definite quality bias towards the TeX articles -- not because of the typesetting per se but rather because it's indicative of a lot of time spent carefully preparing a document to a standard. I'm sure others in similar fields have similar experiences.
OneOneOneOne 5y ago
I love my 86 Lamport. The cartoons add such a nice touch.
- DemocracyFTW 5y ago
  See, that might be cultural background or whatnot, I don't know, but some people find those cartoons to be a nice touch, and they admire the clarity of exposition of The TeXbook. I'm the proud owner of the entire 6 vol Computers and Typesetting series (of which the former title is vol A), and have worked through sizable portions of those. I also read mot of the 680 pages of Knuth's Digital Typography monograph. I also owned one LaTeX book at some point. I admire the depth of Knuth's knowledge (typographic and otherwise), the sheer diligence, his quest for quality, all of that. Those lion doodles though, the author's urge to land another witty remark, come up with another finely crafted reference, and how he's prone to hint at stuff instead of writing a proper documentation are not aspects of his work that I enjoy.