5 ms·

> and after the (admittedly nearly vertical) learning curve, you can quite easily produce beautiful documents with it. what helped you get over this curve?

by borg16 3y ago

mettamage 3y ago
Not a math student, used to be a CS master student (with not so great math skills). For me, it took 40 hours to learn with Overleaf/Sharelatex (or whatever they're called nowadays). Just creating many small proof of concept thingies, and slowly building them out. I did this until I was comfortable enough. After 40 hours of learning it, I was about 90% as fast as typing in MS Word. There was one difference though, LaTeX made me way more structured because I commented at every paragraph what the intention of that paragraph was. So my writing became way more focused.
QuadmasterXLII 3y ago
The most common way to learn is to co-author a paper with someone who’s proficient- but that’s an expensive resource!
jyunwai 3y ago
Though I'm not the same commenter, I personally got over the curve by learning from the https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ website recommended by my professor of a math course, and then by learning how to use the Vim text editor with LaTeX. I also gained practice as the math course happened to require students to submit weekly problem sets in LaTeX. ~~~ The first stage was to learn from the LaTeX Tutorial website, which includes a detailed tutorial with no paywall [1]. I paid the closest attention to tutorials 00 to 05 for the core functionality, then skimmed the rest of the tutorial, as I would only rarely use the remaining features. (For tables, even after gaining a general familiarity with how the tabular environment work, I still found it faster to use the Tables Generator website [2], which was also recommended by my instructor.) I then gained practice using TeXstudio as the software to convert LaTeX code into PDFs (as I preferred an offline program), though my professor and most of my fellow students used Overleaf as an online editor. However, I found that I spent a lot of time transcribing handwritten problem sets into LaTeX documents on TeXstudio and Overleaf, and searched for a faster and more pleasant method (in particular, I found that there was a significant delay in my experience when compiling LaTeX code to a PDF with TeXstudio and Overleaf). ~~~ Speed and ease-of-use were therefore my sources of my motivation for learning how to use Vim with LaTeX, though you should have enough knowledge for effectively writing LaTeX documents with just the information from the LaTeX tutorial website. I was also motivated due to my curiosity about Vim in general, from past discussions on the text editor in an xkcd comic and various forum discussions. To begin the learning process for Vim, I completed the default-installed tutorial “vimtutor” (also motivated because I was curious about Vim in general, from past discussions on the text editor in an xkcd comic and various forum discussions) over a weekend day. Crucially, I followed most of the advice from a Hacker Noon article [3] about more efficient ways to scroll up and down. I then edited the .vimrc config file to allow for using the cursor for highlighting text to keep things simple, using most of the default configurations for Neovim. Then, I roughly followed E.J. Mastnak's guide at [4] to get set up, over the course of another weekend day. After some troubleshooting with the configuration, I finally got the setup to work, and I’ve happily been using Vim with LaTeX since then. Since the process reduced the friction to compile LaTeX code to a PDF, I compiled my document more often, so I could catch errors early and often (I rarely spend time troubleshooting and debugging LaTeX code now, since I now fix errors shortly very after they appear, as I compile the document every few lines of code or so). The main major drawback of using Vim and LaTeX was that I followed the advice to enable autocompletion with snippets (e.g. typing “AA” automatically types in “\forall”) via the the UltiSnips software, which would make substitutions without an audible notification (in contrast to other software that I use to make snippets outside of Vim, that would make an audible ping before a substitution). That led to some significant typos in an early assignment I submitted, and I since learned from my mistake to be far more careful when using Vim with LaTeX for enabling snippets. However, snippets also functioned as a nice learning tool, as I would learn through practice what some basic commands would be, through the auto-substitution (for example, I’ve now easily remembered through exposure that <= is written as `\leq`) in LaTeX. ~~~ To conclude, you can use free tutorials to learn the basics of LaTeX, and use Overleaf and TeXstudio to practice. For additional speed and pleasantness, you can spend a couple focused weekend days (or possibly more) to learn how to use Vim with LaTeX following another free guide. Then, you can reinforce your learning through regular practice (in my experience, my regular practice was necessary due to requirements of a math course—if your work or education similarly requires LaTeX, a real-life necessity is a great motivator for practicing document production with LaTeX). [1] https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ [2] https://www.tablesgenerator.com https://www.tablesgenerator.com [3] https://hackernoon.com/learning-vim-what-i-wish-i-knew-b5dca186bef7 https://hackernoon.com/learning-vim-what-i-wish-i-knew-b5dca... [4] https://www.ejmastnak.com/tutorials/vim-latex/intro/ https://www.ejmastnak.com/tutorials/vim-latex/intro/ [5] https://github.com/gillescastel/latex-snippets/blob/master/tex.snippets https://github.com/gillescastel/latex-snippets/blob/master/t...
psychoslave 3y ago
I didn't write any latex for a very long time now, but by the time I went through a master in CS, I had my laboratory advisor asking "how did you make this?" A good answer I didn't thought at the time but that will aplly equally here: curiosity powering the will to read more documentation.
paradox460 3y ago
Live preview, overleaf, and the wikibook page on latex
trostaft 3y ago
Frankly, I got over the curve by forcing myself to write a lot of it. I learned about the language back when I was a freshman in undergrad, and I intentionally just did everything in it. Not just my math and computer science work (but absolutely those), but also I tried to bend the language to do my other course work (e.g. there's a lot of ways to typeset beautiful linguistics diagrams and latin translations). I learned a lot when bending it. And then I again learned a lot when I began to have collaborators whose LaTeX I could look at. And one more time when I began to put together LaTeX for publishing. It was painful for about a week, uncomfortable for about a month, fine for about a year, great for the next five, and as fluid as speaking afterward. I'd call that the typical low-level tool learning trajectory.

> and after the (admittedly nearly vertical) learning curve, you can quite easily produce beautiful documents with it. what helped you get over this curve?

by borg16 3y ago

> and after the (admittedly nearly vertical) learning curve, you can quite easily produce beautiful documents with it. what helped you get over this curve?

mettamage 3y ago

Not a math student, used to be a CS master student (with not so great math skills). For me, it took 40 hours to learn with Overleaf/Sharelatex (or whatever they're called nowadays). Just creating many small proof of concept thingies, and slowly building them out. I did this until I was comfortable enough. After 40 hours of learning it, I was about 90% as fast as typing in MS Word. There was one difference though, LaTeX made me way more structured because I commented at every paragraph what the intention of that paragraph was. So my writing became way more focused.

QuadmasterXLII 3y ago

The most common way to learn is to co-author a paper with someone who’s proficient- but that’s an expensive resource!

jyunwai 3y ago

Though I'm not the same commenter, I personally got over the curve by learning from the https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ website recommended by my professor of a math course, and then by learning how to use the Vim text editor with LaTeX. I also gained practice as the math course happened to require students to submit weekly problem sets in LaTeX. ~~~ The first stage was to learn from the LaTeX Tutorial website, which includes a detailed tutorial with no paywall [1]. I paid the closest attention to tutorials 00 to 05 for the core functionality, then skimmed the rest of the tutorial, as I would only rarely use the remaining features. (For tables, even after gaining a general familiarity with how the tabular environment work, I still found it faster to use the Tables Generator website [2], which was also recommended by my instructor.) I then gained practice using TeXstudio as the software to convert LaTeX code into PDFs (as I preferred an offline program), though my professor and most of my fellow students used Overleaf as an online editor. However, I found that I spent a lot of time transcribing handwritten problem sets into LaTeX documents on TeXstudio and Overleaf, and searched for a faster and more pleasant method (in particular, I found that there was a significant delay in my experience when compiling LaTeX code to a PDF with TeXstudio and Overleaf). ~~~ Speed and ease-of-use were therefore my sources of my motivation for learning how to use Vim with LaTeX, though you should have enough knowledge for effectively writing LaTeX documents with just the information from the LaTeX tutorial website. I was also motivated due to my curiosity about Vim in general, from past discussions on the text editor in an xkcd comic and various forum discussions. To begin the learning process for Vim, I completed the default-installed tutorial “vimtutor” (also motivated because I was curious about Vim in general, from past discussions on the text editor in an xkcd comic and various forum discussions) over a weekend day. Crucially, I followed most of the advice from a Hacker Noon article [3] about more efficient ways to scroll up and down. I then edited the .vimrc config file to allow for using the cursor for highlighting text to keep things simple, using most of the default configurations for Neovim. Then, I roughly followed E.J. Mastnak's guide at [4] to get set up, over the course of another weekend day. After some troubleshooting with the configuration, I finally got the setup to work, and I’ve happily been using Vim with LaTeX since then. Since the process reduced the friction to compile LaTeX code to a PDF, I compiled my document more often, so I could catch errors early and often (I rarely spend time troubleshooting and debugging LaTeX code now, since I now fix errors shortly very after they appear, as I compile the document every few lines of code or so). The main major drawback of using Vim and LaTeX was that I followed the advice to enable autocompletion with snippets (e.g. typing “AA” automatically types in “\forall”) via the the UltiSnips software, which would make substitutions without an audible notification (in contrast to other software that I use to make snippets outside of Vim, that would make an audible ping before a substitution). That led to some significant typos in an early assignment I submitted, and I since learned from my mistake to be far more careful when using Vim with LaTeX for enabling snippets. However, snippets also functioned as a nice learning tool, as I would learn through practice what some basic commands would be, through the auto-substitution (for example, I’ve now easily remembered through exposure that <= is written as `\leq`) in LaTeX. ~~~ To conclude, you can use free tutorials to learn the basics of LaTeX, and use Overleaf and TeXstudio to practice. For additional speed and pleasantness, you can spend a couple focused weekend days (or possibly more) to learn how to use Vim with LaTeX following another free guide. Then, you can reinforce your learning through regular practice (in my experience, my regular practice was necessary due to requirements of a math course—if your work or education similarly requires LaTeX, a real-life necessity is a great motivator for practicing document production with LaTeX). [1] https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ https://latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/ [2] https://www.tablesgenerator.com https://www.tablesgenerator.com [3] https://hackernoon.com/learning-vim-what-i-wish-i-knew-b5dca186bef7 https://hackernoon.com/learning-vim-what-i-wish-i-knew-b5dca... [4] https://www.ejmastnak.com/tutorials/vim-latex/intro/ https://www.ejmastnak.com/tutorials/vim-latex/intro/ [5] https://github.com/gillescastel/latex-snippets/blob/master/tex.snippets https://github.com/gillescastel/latex-snippets/blob/master/t...

psychoslave 3y ago

I didn't write any latex for a very long time now, but by the time I went through a master in CS, I had my laboratory advisor asking "how did you make this?" A good answer I didn't thought at the time but that will aplly equally here: curiosity powering the will to read more documentation.

paradox460 3y ago

Live preview, overleaf, and the wikibook page on latex

trostaft 3y ago

Frankly, I got over the curve by forcing myself to write a lot of it. I learned about the language back when I was a freshman in undergrad, and I intentionally just did everything in it. Not just my math and computer science work (but absolutely those), but also I tried to bend the language to do my other course work (e.g. there's a lot of ways to typeset beautiful linguistics diagrams and latin translations). I learned a lot when bending it. And then I again learned a lot when I began to have collaborators whose LaTeX I could look at. And one more time when I began to put together LaTeX for publishing. It was painful for about a week, uncomfortable for about a month, fine for about a year, great for the next five, and as fluid as speaking afterward. I'd call that the typical low-level tool learning trajectory.