TeX Hour: Thu 30 June: Society, computers and networks: 6:30pm UK time

[Mike Marchywka]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2022 at 12:29:35PM +0100, Jonathan Fine wrote:
>    Hi
>    Tomorrow's TeX Hour will be a general discussion on the themes of society, computers and networks. All views on this are
>    welcome. My personal interest is continuing the good in the past and adopting what is good in the future.

I still can't believe I can't find my CP/M manuals- IIRC they
were only a few pages thick and covered in maybe thick bright
construction paper :)
i
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_paper



I guess if you are lacking in topics from time to time, 
I would like to suggest a few topics on LaTex and specifics
of documention creation. I have posted ad nauseum about 
relationships between dcouments as reflected in bibtex
and hopefully bomtex at some point. There are a lot of
issues with getting dcent bibtex from arbitrary links
not withstanding the existence of Zotero and TooBib
( any others people care to throw in ?) as many
sites seem almost adversarial toward people who want
to cite their works and I'm not even sure it is always
a business or revenue thing.  

There is another issue of using LaTex in less obvious
roles for "automated" PDF creation via computer
generated LaTex code. I'm not familiar with PDF
and LaTex and IIRC it was focused on DVI with 
converters to PS and at somepoint pdf.  
If I understood Bruno Lowagie's
story on iText, it was created in response to a lack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IText

of good ways to make PDF files but yet LaTex
is there and would certainly work where speed is not
a factor. Due to the typeseeting issues, there may 
be some unpredictability for arbitrary data input however
and maybe this is easier to manage with iText or
other normal PDF related API's. However if you 
can use the geerated LaTex this may be an under appreciated
flow.

The other thing I keep bringing up is the "Latex syntax"
which I think in general is an excellent tradeoff
for human readability , at least at the top level in LaTex,
 of the source code compared to
something like  any {X,HT,...}ML. If there are appliations for this,
I'm like to see it in email, that may make a good discussion.


 I also curious about WYSIWYG work flows given speed
issues and multi-platform target destionations for readers.
How do these work out or do people make documents for 8-1/2 x 11 
and let the platforms worry about viewing?  
I like editing LaTex in vi :)


fwiw.


>    TeX Hour: Thursday 30 June, 6:30 to 7:30pm UK time.
>    Zoom
>    URL: [https://us02web.zoom.us/j/78551255396?pwd=cHdJN0pTTXRlRCtSd1lCTHpuWmNIUT09]https://us02web.zoom.us/j/78551255396?pwd=
>    cHdJN0pTTXRlRCtSd1lCTHpuWmNIUT09
>    UK Time Now: [https://time.is/UK]https://time.is/UK.
>    Next week's TeX Hour will be case studies on software documentation. Examples include:
>    [https://docs.alpinelinux.org/user-handbook/0.1a/index.html]https://docs.alpinelinux.org/user-handbook/0.1a/index.html
>    [https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/]https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/
>    [https://www.latex-project.org/help/documentation/]https://www.latex-project.org/help/documentation/
>    [https://numpy.org/doc/stable/]https://numpy.org/doc/stable/
>    [https://docs.python.org/3/]https://docs.python.org/3/
>    By the way, X-windows turned 38 last week. Its replacement, called Wayland, is now adopted by major Linux
>    distributions, with compatibility with X. This is a nice example of continuity and change.
>    Here's a link to the 1986 manual for V-system (a predecessor to X). It's a paper manual scanned in as a PDF, with OCR
>    providing search and copy. How things have changed.
>    [http://bitsavers.org/pdf/stanford/v-system/V_6.0refMan_Jun86.pdf]http://bitsavers.org/pdf/stanford/v-system/V_6.0refMan_Ju
>    n86.pdf
>    And you might also be interested in
>    [https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/22/the_x_window_system_just/]https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/22/the_x_window_syste
>    m_just/
>    [https://lunduke.substack.com/p/w-the-window-system-before-x-that]https://lunduke.substack.com/p/w-the-window-system-before
>    -x-that
>    with best wishes
>    Jonathan

-- 

mike marchywka
306 charles cox
canton GA 30115
USA, Earth 
marchywka at hotmail.com
404-788-1216
ORCID: 0000-0001-9237-455X