[pdftex] MS Word hell, TeX heaven?

[Herman Bruyninckx]

On 13 Mar 2003, Sebastian Rahtz wrote:

> If I may play devil's advocate:
>
> > A big advantage of (La)TeX over Word for large documents is that one can
> > use a file versioning system (such as CVS) to really cooperate with many
> > people, and work on the same files.
>
> I think you'll find that Word users work very well collaboratively;
> they have some excellent software support for annotating documents.
> some people use Word precisely because this sort of support is so good.

Ever tried this with more than 2 people, and really in parallel? The
"change tracking" feature of word processors (not only Word) is not
scalable, and doesn't do versioning.

> > Other large-scale advantages are:
> > - scriptable: it's easy to make automatic reports, with high
> >   typographical quality and rich features.
>
> most decent publishing systems allow that
Yes, but not at the same cost, and (in the case of Word) not with the
same quality.

> > - scalable: (La)TeX documents can be stored in data bases as simple
> >   text, which adds all the scalability and configurability that
> >   databases bring.
>
> I'd argue that LaTeX is spectacularly bad for storing in databases,
> because of the interdependency caused by macros and catcodes. How
> can you store a fragment sensibly like
>  \emax=\h_a
> when you don't have the definitions for the macros, or know
> that I have changed the meaning of _?

Okay. LaTeX is a programming language, in which you can do everything.
So, of course, you have to define what macros sets are useable by people
giving inputs to the database.
Using a database in itself is already a good way to impose structure and
policy on a group of people. That's one of the fundamental reasons
people use databases: get rid of a "file baed" archive :-)

> > - searchable: it's easy to search over a big archive of (La)TeX
> >   documents.
> no, it isn't, for the same reason as above.
Same remark as above :-)

> > - perenniality: one can be sure to be able to access (La)TeX archives at
> >   any time in the distant future.
>
> thats an argument in favour of any text format.
Yes, so what? The question was about the merits of (La)TeX wrt Word, not
RTF :-)

> which of these advantages is not also true of RTF?
Which RTF? There are dozens of rtf "standards" :-) (I know: a bit
exagerated, but not really a lot).
In addition, RTF doesn't help a lot in separating form from content,
which is a basic asset of LaTeX. Of course, XML based formats are even
better in this respect.

> Of course, I am just being awkward. But I feel a little
> embarassed by fervent declarations that LaTeX is the ultimate
> great and good markup scheme. It is not, for many reasons. It's a
> workable, but increasingly fragile, authoring interface to the TeX
> engine; we don't have to feel ashamed of it, but equally we should
> recognize its limitations.
I do. But in a controlled environment, it can do wonders at low costs.

> The 25 years of TeX recognizes the strength of
> TeX-the-typesetting-engine, not LaTeX.....
>
But the major weakness of TeX, IMHO, is the fact that it has bad support
for separation of form and content.

Herman
-- 
  K.U.Leuven, Mechanical Engineering, Robotics Research Group
<http://people.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/~bruyninc> Tel: +32 16 322480