[OS X TeX] Keeping this list healthy

[Simon Spiegel]

On 02.12.2006, at 00:28, Victor Ivrii wrote:

> On 12/1/06, Bruno Voisin <bvoisin at mac.com> wrote:
>>
>
>
> It remains lingua franca in theoretical mathematics.
>
> I must disagree that it is immaterial that M$W is taking over TeX in
> adjacent disciplines. Note that it took over practically all
> wordprocessors including those vastly superior to it. Where is Word
> Perfect? Nisus and Mellel I suspect are completely out of any hope to
> expand their base (I must admit Paragon was the maker of its current
> misery) .

I don't completely agree. Of course, Word is dominating, but there  
definitely is a market for alternatives. I'm in humanities and people  
regularly ask me what they should use for their theses because  
they're fed up with Word. Depending on their needs and skills I  
recommend either Mellel or LaTeX. So far, none of them has regretted  
the switch. The problem is really one of education/knowledge. People  
simply don't know that (better?) alternatives exist. Actually, I'm  
slightly optimistic that using alternative wps will be easier in the  
feature. With MS's move towards a semi-open XML-based file format,  
one of the main reasons for using Word is – at least potentially – gone.

simon
--
Simon Spiegel
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