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I've also noticed that very few of my CS academic colleagues are on anything social other than Google+. The biggest feature it needs is LaTeX escape formatting

I've also noticed that very few of my CS academic colleagues are on anything social other than Google+. The biggest feature it needs is LaTeX escape formatting. I'm sick of seeing "$\mapsto$" in posts instead of a nice arrow.

nitrogen 15y ago
Is it too much to ask LaTeX aficionados to use ASCII symbols where LaTeX isn't supported, or does using "$\mapsto$" instead of "-->" give the writer more academic street cred?
- icebraining 15y ago
  Or just use Unicode, as in →
- ajdecon 15y ago
  Probably not too much to ask, but more difficult than you'd expect. LaTeX is one of the best, most expressive ways to type mathematical expressions... and once you've spent several years in grad school doing so, it becomes second nature. You actually have to think about ascii-fying it instead of just typing $...$ expressions. :-)
- philh 15y ago
  Extensions exist that convert LaTeX to images on-the-fly. And in a lot of cases (∄ comes to mind) there's just no good ASCIIfication, so inline LaTeX is almost as good as anything else even for people without those extensions.
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    I can definitely see the case for ∄. You could use !E, but at that point you might as well just type out \not\exists or use Unicode.
- larsberg 15y ago
  Two reasons: 1) I'm often copy/pasting from publications, and the PDF-rendered glyphs don't turn into proper unicode either (OSX, Preview, paste to Firefox, at least) 2) There are conventional differences between the different arrows such as using a arrow with or without a superscript star versus single-bar down versus double-bar down, etc. and trying to render those in ASCII would be quite confusing for the reader and author. Each of them have semantic meanings, and putting in what is usually used as a single-step arrow in a big-step semantics because you lack the glyphs makes an experienced reader's head hurt.

nitrogen 15y ago

Is it too much to ask LaTeX aficionados to use ASCII symbols where LaTeX isn't supported, or does using "$\mapsto$" instead of "-->" give the writer more academic street cred?

icebraining 15y ago
Or just use Unicode, as in →
ajdecon 15y ago
Probably not too much to ask, but more difficult than you'd expect. LaTeX is one of the best, most expressive ways to type mathematical expressions... and once you've spent several years in grad school doing so, it becomes second nature. You actually have to think about ascii-fying it instead of just typing $...$ expressions. :-)
philh 15y ago
Extensions exist that convert LaTeX to images on-the-fly. And in a lot of cases (∄ comes to mind) there's just no good ASCIIfication, so inline LaTeX is almost as good as anything else even for people without those extensions.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  I can definitely see the case for ∄. You could use !E, but at that point you might as well just type out \not\exists or use Unicode.
larsberg 15y ago
Two reasons: 1) I'm often copy/pasting from publications, and the PDF-rendered glyphs don't turn into proper unicode either (OSX, Preview, paste to Firefox, at least) 2) There are conventional differences between the different arrows such as using a arrow with or without a superscript star versus single-bar down versus double-bar down, etc. and trying to render those in ASCII would be quite confusing for the reader and author. Each of them have semantic meanings, and putting in what is usually used as a single-step arrow in a big-step semantics because you lack the glyphs makes an experienced reader's head hurt.