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I am honestly amazed at how feistily every 'hacker' here is defending LaTeX in response to your comment. I agree with you for the most part. This whole "it's a

I am honestly amazed at how feistily every 'hacker' here is defending LaTeX in response to your comment. I agree with you for the most part. This whole "it's apples to oranges" claim is bullshit. Both Word as well as LaTeX can be used for anything from writing a resume, making a technical paper with a few simple equations, to writing an entire Vector or Linear Algebra textbooks. When you have two options for doing the same task it's very much comparing apples to apples. Yes, they each were originally built with different objectives and different target markets, but they have since aspired to be usable for all the same things. Of course, they each have their strengths and weaknesses. But I don't get how do a bunch of folk here feel justified in arguing against someone saying "there's room for improvement" with clear viable suggestions on the details too. I know that hating on MSWord (or MS-anything) is fashionable on HN. But you can't seriously be defending * the steep learning curve: throw your 14-year-old who's doing a math assignment Word vs your favourite LaTeX editor, see what happens; * lack of WYSIWYG-like feedback-loops: you have to wait a full minute on decently sized documents to see the result of adding that equation that took you 10 seconds to add; * syntax holdups: you miss an underscore and your document is broken. All the way through. And can take an hour to fix even if you're skilled. People writing documents that need LaTeX's power aren't always coders, and debugging is not a fun or planned-for activity for anyone. I also don't for the life of me see why someone has to "be an expert, not just written a couple documents casually in undergrad" to be able to comment on the flaws of a product. They're as much a user as a power user, and obviously the power users went through that stage too. Losing sight of your past difficulties (or being gifted in LaTeX) doesn't make them irrelevant for people not in your current position. Loosely relevant: I smell hardcore "hacker entitlement" around people using LaTeX and defending it including all its stupid barriers to easy document-creation tooth and nail. Hardcore programmers do this with way too many things (like Linux, and development environments for almost any language). And it's just really frustrating for a lot of people to deal with =/ PS: NeoVim sounds like someone finally got off their high horse (or from whining) and decided to actually make something better. Thanks!

anonymouz 13y ago
> This whole "it's apples to oranges" claim is bullshit. Both Word as well as LaTeX can be used for anything from writing a resume, making a technical paper with a few simple equations, to writing an entire Vector or Linear Algebra textbooks. When you have two options for doing the same task it's very much comparing apples to apples. So can HTML. Would you compare Word to HTML? You can also write your resume in Notepad. Does that make Word comparable to Notepad? If you want to compare anything, compare LyX to Word. At least that makes some sense, even if the output of the latter just sucks in comparison to the former. TeX is at its core a typesetting engine. Word is largely a GUI markup editor. It doesn't even do anything coming close to typesetting. > * the steep learning curve: throw your 14-year-old who's doing a math assignment Word vs your favourite LaTeX editor, see what happens; Are you sure? Customizing LaTeX can be hard, but using it in a straightforward way is no more difficult than HTML. Sure, it may be a bit more work than using a GUI, but once you get the hang of it it's a lot quicker than Word's formula editor. > * lack of WYSIWYG-like feedback-loops: you have to wait a full minute on decently sized documents to see the result of adding that equation that took you 10 seconds to add; In my experience it's a lot faster than that. The reason for this is simply that TeX does actual typesetting. This has a certain computational complexity, and cannot just be done on a line-by-line basis. Word is fast because it doesn't do anything like that. Again, Lyx has WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean), which gives you an approximation of the output instantly, minus the proper typesetting. > * syntax holdups: you miss an underscore and your document is broken. All the way through. And can take an hour to fix even if you're skilled. People writing documents that need LaTeX's power aren't always coders, and debugging is not a fun or planned-for activity for anyone. It more commonly takes a minute, not an hour. Every had Word corrupt a file and mess up the styles in the middle of your 150 pages document? That's not exactly a quick fix either. To sum up: If you want a WYSIWYM editor for TeX use Lyx. Otherwise, comparing LaTeX and Word makes about as much sense as comparing HTML and Word.
- keerthiko 13y ago
  > So can HTML. Would you compare Word to HTML? I don't mean to be difficult, but lots of laypeople actually compare HTML and Word for a common purpose, usually for making simple websites. Yes, people actually do generate their front-end page formatting using Word's HTML export. Again in that context, it's technically comparable (or worth comparing, rather). And they each have their flaws. I have used HTML/CSS for lots of documentation, and experimented with it for styling my resume even though those can be classically considered Word's domain. So I actually think comparing HTML and Word is really not that strange for a non-zero number of contexts. Typesetting via "formatting" is a pretty big part of the Word experience, and is a totally worthwhile context in which to compare it to LaTeX. > Customizing LaTeX can be hard, but using it in a straightforward way is no more difficult than HTML. I used LaTeX for every document I created in undergrad, but mostly because I wound up spending hours the first week of every course tuning a document to match the lab report/homework format, and there was a legacy of standards passed down from upperclassmen (ie plenty of nice handholding). After I left college, I've pretty much never wanted to open a LaTeX editor (or Word really, for that matter, because I prefer Google Docs). Typing into LaTeX really is very straightforward, and is far superior for equations and the such, yes. But to start from a blank page, it's a nightmare without lots of handholding (or experience) to make your document legible. To some extent, so is HTML/CSS, for lots of things. A lot less so with Word. This is a bit of a contrived example, but I think of this as similar to running a "Hello World" alert window in python+tkinter vs javascript+Chrome on a Windows computer. It's amazing how difficult the initial setup and configuration in the python route is (you should try it on Windows if you haven't) compared to the "write code, refresh browser" in the js route. Even though the code is possibly less friendly in js, it is actually easier to get up and running with far less handholding. There's just so many other things slowing down and making the python+windows experience making it frustrating for a beginner. That's how I feel about TeX vs Word. I would bet money most middle schoolers, if given a blank LaTeX editor page and a blank page in Word/GDocs to write just a bunch of math formula (some fractions, arithmetic symbols and some exponents maybe?) would give you something better and sooner with the latter. > In my experience it's a lot faster than that. This unfortunately wasn't true for me, or for a lot of other people. Maybe large amounts of images, or the wrong image formats, or numerous other causes can make exports slow. I don't know the details of why, but it was there, and it sucked. Maybe a side-by-side editor+constant re-render in a custom output format (that's optimized for TeX rendering way faster than making a pdf), would be pretty cool, for instance. I don't need to export to pdf after every tiny edit after all. > It more commonly takes a minute, not an hour. I'll completely admit I got a little overdramatic by that point =]. Sure it's more commonly a minute, but it's still full of much more "Badness 10K" than I ever had Word throw an Error dialog at me. And in my (weak) defense, I have wound up spending an hour fixing a LaTeX bug from a missed closing brace, and I couldn't create the document. and it would have helped if I could have noticed it the moment it happened (as opposed to after my next recompile which took 30 seconds). I feel constant debugging shouldn't really have a place in document-writing. Perhaps better error tolerance (a la HTML) and/or debugging would be nice. To sum up: I'm not trying to put down LaTeX. But it has lackings, which can be addressed. I also wouldn't suggest to make LaTeX function like other WYSIWYG/WYSIWYM editor, but to attempt to address the root problem, ie, the feedback-loops times. Lyx tried to do that, but WYSIWYM wasn't the right answer (for all the people who still use regular LaTeX editors instead). Well, I actually don't even write documents very much anymore so maybe I'm pretty disconnected from the whole ecosystem for a while, but from what I gather the tools haven't really evolved much at all in the last 4 years.
theon144 13y ago
>* syntax holdups: you miss an underscore and your document is broken. All the way through. And can take an hour to fix even if you're skilled. I'm sorry, but I just have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't encountered anything like that - not when I was starting out with LaTeX, not now when I use it for writing technical docs. "An hour to fix" smells like pure FUD to me - any mistake can take an hour, a minute, or even a week to fix. However, I can't imagine a syntax error like missing an underscore - especially one like that - could take more than a few minutes at the very most. >PS: NeoVim sounds like someone finally got off their high horse (or from whining) and decided to actually make something better. Thanks! I think you're a bit confused as to what exactly are the "hardcore entitled hackers" defending. Lots of systems in the UNIX ecosystem are bogged down by backward compatibility, are arcane, or just plainly in need of rewrite. Nobody disputes that. The commenters here however attack them from a completely different position, and with arguments which mostly don't hold water - so don't expect no defense. Hackers aren't the kind of people who would cling to their tools despite them having obvious and easily mitigable flaws. After all, this post did gain a lot of traction, at this point mostly by simply presenting what would be great to do.
orbifold 13y ago
The first time I used Latex was when I was around 16 and did a Math competition. I first tried to use Word to typeset equations and it was a nightmare to use. So I looked around on the Internet for an alternative and found LaTeX. I think it has a very low barrier of entry, all you really need is \documentclass{article} \begin{document} Hi. \end{document} All the additional commands can be learned on the fly, if you have a reference at hand. I'm sure there are commands in Word for creating a title page, a table of contents, a bibliography, an index, correctly numbering equations and updating references if you add additional ones, but once I discovered Latex I have never looked back and have not used Word in a long time.
naa42 13y ago
Have you ever tried to write math/physics paper using MS Word? It is completely broken comparing to LaTeX+decent text editor (vim, emacs, kyle, whatever). Writing equations in Word is pain, inserting bibliography is pain, inserting figures is pain. Printed results do not match screen version, if you need to collaborate with someone you have problems with diffs and different versions of Word. Another use for LaTeX is making slides for presentations. Word or Markdown can't be used for this. And if you use PowerPoint for slides you are in trouble. Most probably your Greek letters in formulas will be invisible or software will crash in process.

anonymouz 13y ago

> This whole "it's apples to oranges" claim is bullshit. Both Word as well as LaTeX can be used for anything from writing a resume, making a technical paper with a few simple equations, to writing an entire Vector or Linear Algebra textbooks. When you have two options for doing the same task it's very much comparing apples to apples. So can HTML. Would you compare Word to HTML? You can also write your resume in Notepad. Does that make Word comparable to Notepad? If you want to compare anything, compare LyX to Word. At least that makes some sense, even if the output of the latter just sucks in comparison to the former. TeX is at its core a typesetting engine. Word is largely a GUI markup editor. It doesn't even do anything coming close to typesetting. > * the steep learning curve: throw your 14-year-old who's doing a math assignment Word vs your favourite LaTeX editor, see what happens; Are you sure? Customizing LaTeX can be hard, but using it in a straightforward way is no more difficult than HTML. Sure, it may be a bit more work than using a GUI, but once you get the hang of it it's a lot quicker than Word's formula editor. > * lack of WYSIWYG-like feedback-loops: you have to wait a full minute on decently sized documents to see the result of adding that equation that took you 10 seconds to add; In my experience it's a lot faster than that. The reason for this is simply that TeX does actual typesetting. This has a certain computational complexity, and cannot just be done on a line-by-line basis. Word is fast because it doesn't do anything like that. Again, Lyx has WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean), which gives you an approximation of the output instantly, minus the proper typesetting. > * syntax holdups: you miss an underscore and your document is broken. All the way through. And can take an hour to fix even if you're skilled. People writing documents that need LaTeX's power aren't always coders, and debugging is not a fun or planned-for activity for anyone. It more commonly takes a minute, not an hour. Every had Word corrupt a file and mess up the styles in the middle of your 150 pages document? That's not exactly a quick fix either. To sum up: If you want a WYSIWYM editor for TeX use Lyx. Otherwise, comparing LaTeX and Word makes about as much sense as comparing HTML and Word.

keerthiko 13y ago
> So can HTML. Would you compare Word to HTML? I don't mean to be difficult, but lots of laypeople actually compare HTML and Word for a common purpose, usually for making simple websites. Yes, people actually do generate their front-end page formatting using Word's HTML export. Again in that context, it's technically comparable (or worth comparing, rather). And they each have their flaws. I have used HTML/CSS for lots of documentation, and experimented with it for styling my resume even though those can be classically considered Word's domain. So I actually think comparing HTML and Word is really not that strange for a non-zero number of contexts. Typesetting via "formatting" is a pretty big part of the Word experience, and is a totally worthwhile context in which to compare it to LaTeX. > Customizing LaTeX can be hard, but using it in a straightforward way is no more difficult than HTML. I used LaTeX for every document I created in undergrad, but mostly because I wound up spending hours the first week of every course tuning a document to match the lab report/homework format, and there was a legacy of standards passed down from upperclassmen (ie plenty of nice handholding). After I left college, I've pretty much never wanted to open a LaTeX editor (or Word really, for that matter, because I prefer Google Docs). Typing into LaTeX really is very straightforward, and is far superior for equations and the such, yes. But to start from a blank page, it's a nightmare without lots of handholding (or experience) to make your document legible. To some extent, so is HTML/CSS, for lots of things. A lot less so with Word. This is a bit of a contrived example, but I think of this as similar to running a "Hello World" alert window in python+tkinter vs javascript+Chrome on a Windows computer. It's amazing how difficult the initial setup and configuration in the python route is (you should try it on Windows if you haven't) compared to the "write code, refresh browser" in the js route. Even though the code is possibly less friendly in js, it is actually easier to get up and running with far less handholding. There's just so many other things slowing down and making the python+windows experience making it frustrating for a beginner. That's how I feel about TeX vs Word. I would bet money most middle schoolers, if given a blank LaTeX editor page and a blank page in Word/GDocs to write just a bunch of math formula (some fractions, arithmetic symbols and some exponents maybe?) would give you something better and sooner with the latter. > In my experience it's a lot faster than that. This unfortunately wasn't true for me, or for a lot of other people. Maybe large amounts of images, or the wrong image formats, or numerous other causes can make exports slow. I don't know the details of why, but it was there, and it sucked. Maybe a side-by-side editor+constant re-render in a custom output format (that's optimized for TeX rendering way faster than making a pdf), would be pretty cool, for instance. I don't need to export to pdf after every tiny edit after all. > It more commonly takes a minute, not an hour. I'll completely admit I got a little overdramatic by that point =]. Sure it's more commonly a minute, but it's still full of much more "Badness 10K" than I ever had Word throw an Error dialog at me. And in my (weak) defense, I have wound up spending an hour fixing a LaTeX bug from a missed closing brace, and I couldn't create the document. and it would have helped if I could have noticed it the moment it happened (as opposed to after my next recompile which took 30 seconds). I feel constant debugging shouldn't really have a place in document-writing. Perhaps better error tolerance (a la HTML) and/or debugging would be nice. To sum up: I'm not trying to put down LaTeX. But it has lackings, which can be addressed. I also wouldn't suggest to make LaTeX function like other WYSIWYG/WYSIWYM editor, but to attempt to address the root problem, ie, the feedback-loops times. Lyx tried to do that, but WYSIWYM wasn't the right answer (for all the people who still use regular LaTeX editors instead). Well, I actually don't even write documents very much anymore so maybe I'm pretty disconnected from the whole ecosystem for a while, but from what I gather the tools haven't really evolved much at all in the last 4 years.

theon144 13y ago

>* syntax holdups: you miss an underscore and your document is broken. All the way through. And can take an hour to fix even if you're skilled. I'm sorry, but I just have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't encountered anything like that - not when I was starting out with LaTeX, not now when I use it for writing technical docs. "An hour to fix" smells like pure FUD to me - any mistake can take an hour, a minute, or even a week to fix. However, I can't imagine a syntax error like missing an underscore - especially one like that - could take more than a few minutes at the very most. >PS: NeoVim sounds like someone finally got off their high horse (or from whining) and decided to actually make something better. Thanks! I think you're a bit confused as to what exactly are the "hardcore entitled hackers" defending. Lots of systems in the UNIX ecosystem are bogged down by backward compatibility, are arcane, or just plainly in need of rewrite. Nobody disputes that. The commenters here however attack them from a completely different position, and with arguments which mostly don't hold water - so don't expect no defense. Hackers aren't the kind of people who would cling to their tools despite them having obvious and easily mitigable flaws. After all, this post did gain a lot of traction, at this point mostly by simply presenting what would be great to do.

orbifold 13y ago

The first time I used Latex was when I was around 16 and did a Math competition. I first tried to use Word to typeset equations and it was a nightmare to use. So I looked around on the Internet for an alternative and found LaTeX. I think it has a very low barrier of entry, all you really need is \documentclass{article} \begin{document} Hi. \end{document} All the additional commands can be learned on the fly, if you have a reference at hand. I'm sure there are commands in Word for creating a title page, a table of contents, a bibliography, an index, correctly numbering equations and updating references if you add additional ones, but once I discovered Latex I have never looked back and have not used Word in a long time.

naa42 13y ago

Have you ever tried to write math/physics paper using MS Word? It is completely broken comparing to LaTeX+decent text editor (vim, emacs, kyle, whatever). Writing equations in Word is pain, inserting bibliography is pain, inserting figures is pain. Printed results do not match screen version, if you need to collaborate with someone you have problems with diffs and different versions of Word. Another use for LaTeX is making slides for presentations. Word or Markdown can't be used for this. And if you use PowerPoint for slides you are in trouble. Most probably your Greek letters in formulas will be invisible or software will crash in process.