• ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        Once your over the hump, it’s a pleasure to use relative to word. Especially if your document gets large or has lots of maths in it.

        • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          9 months ago

          And LaTeX works very well with git, this is really great when you are collaborating on a report.

        • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          I mean, the MATLAB wojak has a dent in its skull, which feels pretty accurate. There is a ton of complex, niche, and (for those within the niche) incredibly useful software in the various Toolboxes, all developed with those fat stacks of MATLAB money. But it’s all piloted with the MATLAB language, which is just one of the worst things ever for oh so very many reasons.

          And it’s wildly expensive.

    • DrakeRichards@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      20
      ·
      9 months ago

      Please forget LaTeX. Please let us adopt a more modern alternative that isn’t absolutely painful to use.

      • vaionko@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        9 months ago

        I suggest locking your doors, a very angry crowd is likely to arrive shortly

        • DrakeRichards@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          9 months ago

          I’ve been using Typst. Its (mostly) open source and much simpler than LaTeX. It’s still very new though, so it doesn’t have all of LaTeX’s features, but it’s making very steady progress.

          • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            9 months ago

            Seems a bit early to declare an end to Latex then. According to you some use cases aren’t supported. What isn’t open source about it?

            Don’t get me wrong, Latex has lots of weird quirks, and you made it sound like there were a few obvious options to replace it. But Typst doesn’t look like is ready for prime time.

            • DrakeRichards@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              9 months ago

              I wasn’t trying to imply that Typst is a replacement for LaTeX. I’m more trying to say that I’m hoping Typst (and any other typesetting alternatives that might be out there) mature enough over the next year or two to become full replacements. It just doesn’t seem to be gaining much attention because of how dominant LaTeX is.

              The main part that’s not open source is their web client, which I’m fine with. There’s a number of people on GitHub that aren’t happy about it though.

              • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                9 months ago

                I see. It’s been a while since I last used Latex in college. Back then Kylyx was still in it’s infancy and I anyway had a established workflow with Makefiles. It seemed to me back then that the steady progress in user interface of Latex tools (like Kylyx and etc.) would be enough to make it more accessible.

                Just like you have great coding IDEs nowadays with AI code completion helpers, something similar could be done for Latex. Incremental compilers for Markdown allow you to see changes in real-time in some editors, would be nice to have something of the sort for Latex. With these two and a context sensitive syntax helper (Clippy, but not annoying), and you have a killer solution. And one that is backwards compatible with all the tools that have been developed for Latex in these past decades.

      • stufkes@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        It’s just different use cases. A quick one pager such as memo, summary, short review, etc can all be done in a simple word processor.

        Anything thesis-like or scientific, definitely LaTeX. What needs to die is slides in LaTeX however. That is definitely outdated and so restricted. Even libre office PowerPoint is better. But again, the power of math syntax is strong here. You’re very likely to see that ugly beamer format in CS and math classes.

        I don’t get why people need to be in camps. Just use…both?

        • DrakeRichards@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          9 months ago

          I mean more that LaTeX’s syntax and compilation methods are outdated. I’ve tried to grok LaTeX many times, but the most I’ve ever been able to do is make small modifications to existing templates. I’ve never been able to make a brand new project work. I’m really hoping that modern alternatives like Typst become more common. There just don’t seem to be many out there because of how dominant LaTeX is.