Who were the opponents of Lisp?
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From: Nicolas Neuss on 31 Mar 2010 03:55 Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> writes: > Of course TeX fails to capture the semantics of the expression at all, but > I think that if you try and do that you likely end up with something you > can't type quickly. And that does matter to people who are fluent with > maths and typing - you want something which is not enormously slower than > handwriting stuff. I think this is the most important point. It would probably be very amusing to see a competition in math typing speed between someone proficient in TeX (who is additionally using a reasonable environment like Emacs/AucTeX) and someone proficient in typing math in Word or similar (are there such people at all?). OTOH, if you use TeX/LaTeX only rarely, the overhead is large. And learning LaTeX becomes masochism, if you are not really trained in structured thinking and/or programming, and you have noone at hand who sets you straight if you maltreat it as a WYSIWYG system. Nicolas
From: Tamas K Papp on 31 Mar 2010 04:20 On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:55:38 +0200, Nicolas Neuss wrote: > Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> writes: > >> Of course TeX fails to capture the semantics of the expression at all, >> but I think that if you try and do that you likely end up with >> something you can't type quickly. And that does matter to people who >> are fluent with maths and typing - you want something which is not >> enormously slower than handwriting stuff. > > I think this is the most important point. It would probably be very > amusing to see a competition in math typing speed between someone > proficient in TeX (who is additionally using a reasonable environment > like Emacs/AucTeX) and someone proficient in typing math in Word or > similar (are there such people at all?). Since about a year ago, I started using a Wacom Bamboo tablet (the cheapest one, for about $50) with Xournal on Linux for "writing" math derivations that only have a small audience (ie coauthors, students in a class). I like it very much, but the funny thing is that even though using it feels perfectly natural, it is only about 2x as fast as typing in LaTeX! So I agree with your point completely. > OTOH, if you use TeX/LaTeX only rarely, the overhead is large. And > learning LaTeX becomes masochism, if you are not really trained in > structured thinking and/or programming, and you have noone at hand who > sets you straight if you maltreat it as a WYSIWYG system. I think that the Lamport book is a gentle introduction for such people. Tamas
From: Tim Bradshaw on 31 Mar 2010 05:53 On 2010-03-31 09:20:32 +0100, Tamas K Papp said: > Since about a year ago, I started using a Wacom Bamboo tablet (the > cheapest one, for about $50) with Xournal on Linux for "writing" math > derivations that only have a small audience (ie coauthors, students in > a class). I like it very much, but the funny thing is that even > though using it feels perfectly natural, it is only about 2x as fast > as typing in LaTeX! So I agree with your point completely. I use paper for that... I think I can probably type text faster than I can coherently write it, but I can handwrite maths faster than I can type at present. However, at one time I typed maths books for a living, and I'm fairly sure I could type TeX faster than by hand at that point. Of course that's a weird case, because you are just transcriing existing stuff. I would always prefer to write maths initially (I mean with a pen & paper), because it makes thinking easier somehow. > > I think that the Lamport book is a gentle introduction for such > people. I would guess that the youth of today would just reject TeX out of hand because, you know, it's not pretty. I can remember (somewhere around the eternal September) when students started appearing who would no longer accept emacs & TeX for writing stuff, but demanded Word, despite it being much slower to get anything technical down with Word.
From: Nicolas Neuss on 31 Mar 2010 08:21 Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> writes: > On 2010-03-31 09:20:32 +0100, Tamas K Papp said: > >> Since about a year ago, I started using a Wacom Bamboo tablet (the >> cheapest one, for about $50) with Xournal on Linux for "writing" math >> derivations that only have a small audience (ie coauthors, students >> in a class). I like it very much, but the funny thing is that even >> though using it feels perfectly natural, it is only about 2x as fast >> as typing in LaTeX! So I agree with your point completely. > > I use paper for that... I think I can probably type text faster than I > can coherently write it, but I can handwrite maths faster than I can > type at present. However, at one time I typed maths books for a > living, and I'm fairly sure I could type TeX faster than by hand at > that point. Of course that's a weird case, because you are just > transcriing existing stuff. I would always prefer to write maths > initially (I mean with a pen & paper), because it makes thinking > easier somehow. Yes, but as soon as one arrives at the point where the content is relatively clear, the possibility to edit and copy things around becomes more valuable than the mere speed of sketching. For example, when writing scripts for lectures, I observe that I rarely use paper any more. >> I think that the Lamport book is a gentle introduction for such >> people. > > I would guess that the youth of today would just reject TeX out of > hand because, you know, it's not pretty. I can remember (somewhere > around the eternal September) when students started appearing who > would no longer accept emacs & TeX for writing stuff, but demanded > Word, despite it being much slower to get anything technical down with > Word. I think LaTeX appeals to the same minds who also like programming. Unfortunately, I observe that there are even many math students who do not fit this description. Nicolas
From: Tim Bradshaw on 31 Mar 2010 09:33
On 2010-03-31 13:21:44 +0100, Nicolas Neuss said: > Yes, but as soon as one arrives at the point where the content is > relatively clear, the possibility to edit and copy things around becomes > more valuable than the mere speed of sketching. For example, when > writing scripts for lectures, I observe that I rarely use paper any > more. Yes, I agree with this completely. In the trivial playing which is all I do nowadays, I tend to hand-write things until I understand what I am doing, then type up a fair copy (which I actually do using the wonderful jsMath plugin for TiddlyWiki rather than TeX itself, but only because I essentially keep my brain in TW now). |