[pdftex] MS Word hell, TeX heaven?

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 03:09:26PM -0500, John Culleton wrote:

> My complaints are several. First it is too wordy. Second, it assumes that your 
> document falls within a small set of of types. Third, there is no single 
> guide to all of LaTeX. It takes several books, most of them obsolete. 
> Fourth, the various and sundry LaTeX macros can conflict with one another.
> Fifth, unlike pdftex and Context, the plain TeX commands are not supported. 

Is that really the worst that you can say about LaTeX?

(1) Wordy -- do you mean there are too many 
long macro-names like \textsuperscript ?
Or that you want to replace \begin{enumerate} with \be?

I always find this argument rather odd,
as in my experience the proportion of time spent writing \section{Foo}
is completely negligible when compared with the time
thinking what to put in section Foo.

(2) All my documents _do_ fall into a small number of classes.
I'd only like one more class -- thesis,
so every university in the world did not invent its own.

(3) I find the LaTeX Manual and the LaTeX Companion serve all my needs
(with occasional glances at my printed copy of amsldoc).

(4) I never get conflicts, probably because I use very few packages.
I used to get occasional glips with hyperref,
but that great package seems fool-proof nowadays.

(5) I rarely feel the urge to use a plain TeX command,
as reading the TeXbook makes me feel dizzy.

> > For some reason the pointy-heads won't admit
> > that 95% of the people using LaTeX are using it for math,
> > for which it is not just the best tool,
> > it is the only tool for the job.
 
> Ahem. I think plain TeX, TeXsis, pdftex and Context also do excellent math. 

Yes ... when batting for the Philistines one is allowed to use blunt instruments.

> Knuth did not design LaTeX, although he was aware of it when he printed the 
> final version of The TeXBook.  So his common sense spreads beyond LaTeX.

I did know DK was not responsible for LaTeX.
My point was that his common-sense kept the LaTeX guys 
on the straight and narrow.
It's frightening to think what they might have done
if given free rein (should that be reign?).

> There is this amazing tendency for those who use LaTeX to think that it is the
> only game in TeX-town and math is the only reason for using TeX at all.

I only said that math accounted for 95% of LaTeX usage.
As one of the 5% in this country,
I'm all in favour of special concessions to minorities.

But those who want to write Mongolian upside-down shouldn't rock the boat,
or even steer it.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: tim at maths.tcd.ie
tel: 086-233 6090
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland