[texhax] WYSIWYG paradigm

[Urs Liska]

Am 24.06.2015 um 15:29 schrieb Ulrike Fischer:
> Am Tue, 23 Jun 2015 14:41:41 +0000 schrieb resolvent at comcast.net:
> 
>>  that's why I asked if there existed college courses in TeX.
> 
> I could name you some in germany ...
> 
> Imho it would be probably better to check the colleges in your area,
> or the local tex user groups, or the consultant list of TUG:
> 
> http://tug.org/lags/
> http://tug.org/consultants.html
> 
> 

One thought that seems not to have been mentioned in these threads:

I agree with most that a multi-semester course is absolutely not the way
to go and particularly unnecessary. However, what such formal courses
promise, and what I think *is* extremely useful, is *personal*
attention. When you have to learn new systems where you have concepts,
tools, libraries and syntax to understand at the same time it is
invaluable to have someone available who can help you out with examples
to *your* problems, answering *your* questions and explaining concepts
responding to *your* comprehension problems.

But for this it is not necessary to find and book a course spanning
several years.
I agree that it can be discomforting to rely on mailing lists, for
example because you usually feel too intrusive with all your silly
beginners' questions. So I could imagine it would be quite promising to
find (and potentially hire) someone to give you and your team a proper
introduction, starting with setting up your systems so you don't have to
struggle with that too. If you have someone for two weekends and the
option of email support for a while I'm sure this should bring you to a
point where you can start helping yourself with online resources,
mailing lists etc.

Such an approach would also have the advantage that this "mentor" could
help you setting up your environment (I'm talking of document classes,
stylesheets, commands, but maybe also of build tools or version control)
exactly corresponding to your needs. So you don't have to stumble around
in the vast area of possibilities with TeX.

Depending on your team and the nature of your tasks this might need only
one weekend or two full weeks or whatever. But I'm sure it's *much* less
than a formal course as you seem to expect.

HTH
Urs