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by heinrichf 2340 days ago
I feel that the author saying LaTeX is bad because it is (in particular) not based on a GUI/point-and-click system, and preferring Microsoft Equation Editor/Outline to it, reveals a big misunderstanding.

I also don't see how Mathematica's notation is any better; I view it as way worse.
2 comments
gerikson 2340 days ago
> I feel that the author saying LaTeX is bad because it is (in particular) not based on a GUI/point-and-click system, and preferring Microsoft Equation Editor/Outline to it, reveals a big misunderstanding.

He does not prefer MEE.

Quoting the article:

> TeX, being a pretty-printing system, can be considered in the same class as Microsoft Word Equation Editor. The difference lies only in their mode of operation. Specifically, TeX is by compile and batch operation like a typical computer language, and the Equation Editor is by using a mouse to click menus and buttons with graphical user interface. The heart of both as far as math notation is concerned, is doodling of a em space or en dash. All math notation's semantic structure are lost.

I don’t think asking for a graphical shell for TeX/LaTeX is unreasonable.

However, back when I was winding down my active LaTeX involvement in the late 90s, there were applications that enabled wysiwyg editing of LaTeX.

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spystath 2340 days ago
> I don’t think asking for a graphical shell for TeX/LaTeX is unreasonable.

There is one: it's called LyX [0]! You take care of content and LyX will abstract away most, if not all, TeX stuff. I've used it in the past for quite extensive documents and it is quite frictionless. It is never going to be a word processor but I believe LyX strikes the middle ground quite well. This [1] looks quite "graphic-y" to my eyes

[0] https://www.lyx.org/

[1] https://www.lyx.org/images/about/aqua.png

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gerikson 2340 days ago
That was the one! Glad to hear it's still chugging along.
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coldtea 2340 days ago
>I also don't see how Mathematica's notation is any better; I view it as way worse.

Besides the obvious readability improvement, it's better in that it retains the semantics of the underlying math more.

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heinrichf 2340 days ago
As a professional mathematician, I see it the same way a musician views musical notation. Sure, writing the name of each note on the stave would be easier to read at first, but the seemingly complex notation then allows for a much quicker understanding (see how talented pianists can sight read very complicated scores; I doubt this could be possible with a more verbose notation). Similarly, I have no trouble parsing (correctly written) LaTeX mentally.
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