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TeX is a program for typesetting, and IMO if one is a programmer, it is best used as a target or output format: do all your "document" stuff somewhere else (don

by svat 4y ago

TeX is a program for typesetting, and IMO if one is a programmer, it is best used as a target or output format: do all your "document" stuff somewhere else (don't use LaTeX), and use TeX just for typesetting. You can have your document in some parsable format, but not require it of the output .tex file, just as we expect high-level programming-language source code to be parsable but don't really expect to get much utility out of parsing assembly or object code. Knuth initially added macros to TeX just as a convenience to save some typing here and there, and the tradition of (ab)using that macro ability as a language in which to program, inaugurated in a small way by Knuth himself and later taken to dizzying heights by others (such as Leslie Lamport with LaTeX, and hundreds/thousands of assorted "package" authors since, and the LaTeX team currently), is IMO a mistake. If you use TeX just for typesetting, it is quite a nice program that does what you want, and has very good error messages (yes) and debugging output.

walnutclosefarm 4y ago
> TeX is a program for typesetting, and IMO if one is a programmer, it is best used as a target or output format That's the only thing I ever found it to be good for. Even then, it's a PITA. The world would not be a poorer place if it disappeared and was replaced something that that separated style definition, markup, and content in a reasonable fashion, and used modern language techniques (just a CFG would be a start) for the first two.
- jeffrallen 4y ago
  And Computer Modern Roman is as ugly as fudge.
  - KolenCh 4y ago
    Not totally disagreeing but note that it is expected to be printed, and modern readers often just look at a PDF which makes the weights too light. Also it has some aliasing problem (or may be named differently, but basically when you view the PDF some words look like a line is skipped but when you zoom or print it out it has no problem.) Also modern LaTeX is supposed to not use computer modern anymore, but the Latin Modern (which imitates computer modern but fixes some of its shortcomings.)

by svat 4y ago

walnutclosefarm 4y ago

> TeX is a program for typesetting, and IMO if one is a programmer, it is best used as a target or output format That's the only thing I ever found it to be good for. Even then, it's a PITA. The world would not be a poorer place if it disappeared and was replaced something that that separated style definition, markup, and content in a reasonable fashion, and used modern language techniques (just a CFG would be a start) for the first two.

jeffrallen 4y ago
And Computer Modern Roman is as ugly as fudge.
- KolenCh 4y ago
  Not totally disagreeing but note that it is expected to be printed, and modern readers often just look at a PDF which makes the weights too light. Also it has some aliasing problem (or may be named differently, but basically when you view the PDF some words look like a line is skipped but when you zoom or print it out it has no problem.) Also modern LaTeX is supposed to not use computer modern anymore, but the Latin Modern (which imitates computer modern but fixes some of its shortcomings.)