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I love LaTeX

vtkvtk
in Design
When I get on the PC again I'll upload some examples of stuff I've typeset in LaTeX. Also up for discussion or seeing what other people have done with LaTeX.

Comments

  • TatterhoodTatterhood
    personally I HaTeX
  • criminalscumcriminalscum
    LaTeX and latex are definitely two of my favorite things
  • TatterhoodTatterhood
    edited 2018-06-27 03:24:45
    Tatterhood said:

    personally I HaTeX

    for real I don't actually hate it

    my real opinion on tex is: it is the worst way to typeset documents, except for all the others that exist
  • vtkvtk
    embrace the confusion
    I mean, yeah, the code can be difficult to use, but the results can look so so pretty
  • TatterhoodTatterhood
    edited 2018-06-27 16:20:41
    vtk said:

    I mean, yeah, the code can be difficult to use, but the results can look so so pretty

    I don't find it that hard any more, it's just kind of frustrating sometimes. Donald Knuth made some design decisions 40 years ago that in retrospect were the wrong ones, but we're now stuck with them forever because TeX is an incredibly complicated piece of software that also manages to not be a buggy mess, which is something that people who aren't Donald Knuth are highly unlikely to replicate.

    I'm thinking of things like, in LaTeX you use [square brackets] for optional arguments to things, but because they're not used in plain TeX the parser doesn't understand that, so by default they don't nest, and I have to write stuff like
    \begin{lemma}[{\cite[lemma 6.2.1]{brylawski-oxley}}]
    with extra curly braces to explain to the compiler which closing brackets go with which opening ones. Or how half the TeX packages you find have stuff in the documentation like "if you put a space before this command it won't work properly", or just the fact that to compile my thesis correctly from scratch I'd have to run pdflatex, bibtex, makeindex, pdflatex, makeindex, pdflatex, pdflatex and I'm only like 80% sure that's the right order and number of times to run each one.
  • Princess AlicePrincess Alice
    You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    "Someone made design decisions 40 years ago that in retrospect were the wrong ones, but now we're stuck with them forever" could describe many, many things in the tech world, I think.
  • TatterhoodTatterhood
    edited 2018-06-27 16:45:11
    Central Avenue said:

    "Someone made design decisions 40 years ago that in retrospect were the wrong ones, but now we're stuck with them forever" could describe many, many things in the tech world, I think.

    Oh, absolutely. My feelings about TeX are very similar to my feelings about UNIX.
  • vtkvtk
    embrace the confusion
    Tatterhood said:

    or just the fact that to compile my thesis correctly from scratch I'd have to run pdflatex, bibtex, makeindex, pdflatex, makeindex, pdflatex, pdflatex and I'm only like 80% sure that's the right order and number of times to run each one.

    I use MikTex, so for me the process would be: select pdflatex + bibtex + makeindex from the drop down (which happens to be the default) and press the run button until the output looks right (which I'd expect to be at least twice if I've made significant changes to the content since last run).

    That said, I've never used LaTeX for anything so academic or complicated as a thesis, so just pdflatex once is usually enough (twice if i have a table of contents).
  • CalicaCalica
    Sup bitches, witches, Haters, and trolls.
    AucTeX was decent at telling me what the next thing to run was but bibtex is obnoxious. better than doing that shit manually though, which i think is the state of the art in non-TeX subjects
  • TreTre
    image
    but y'all called Quip a heathen when he said he had an operating system kink
  • vtkvtk
    embrace the confusion
    image
  • lee4hmzlee4hmz
    ⚠ THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS
    LaTeX's zillion component programs remind me a lot of how troff and friends work (though troff isn't nearly as powerful).
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