Re: Word processors [was Re: Phonemes]

Lee Sau Dan wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Peter" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> >> Not so in the Free/OpenSource Software world. I always see
> >> free softwares improving and improving and improving. Linux
> >> kernel for instance. Mozilla Firefox is also quite impressive
> >> in terms of features and customizability and operability (e.g.
> >> are there convenient keyboard shortcuts to the most frequently
> >> used functions?), although nothing can really compare with GNU
> >> Emacs.
>
> Peter> In the publishing world, as opposed to the Free Software
> Peter> world, cross-user and cross-platform compatibility is
> Peter> paramount.
>
> That's why I use LaTeX. Available on so many platforms: DOS,
> Windows*, all flavours of unix. Not sure but I believe it's also
> available on VMS.
>
> Peter> If tinkerer A passes on improvement X to user P, and
> Peter> tinkerer B passes on improvement Y to user Q, the result is
> Peter> chaos.
>
> LaTeX is great for such collaborative writing. This is because it

Have you ever had a manuscript published by a publisher? (Not
camera-ready, of course, where the publisher puts a disclaimer on the
copyright page.)

> encourages the use of structural markups (comparable to "styles" in
> those lousy Word Processors) rather than visual marksups (comparable
> to "font size", "bold/italic/underline" on the tool bars of most word
> processors). Common word processors has a poorly designed user
> interface that encourages the use of visual markups rather than
> structural markups. Also, the user interface bothers the users with
> the intermediate (i.e. not final) appearance of a document, rather
> than letting the writer concentrate on the structure, organization and
> contents of the document.
>
> LaTeX macros is also a useful feature for collaborative work.
> Firstly, it makes it easy to unify notations. Secondly, it allows
> some tough decisions to be deferred. So, you can start writing
> without worrying about what the name of your big new invention be.
> You can use a macro with the temptative name, and change the macro
> definition to the final name just 5 minutes before the paper is due.
>
> Not to mention that LaTeX supports kerning, ligatures as well as
> hyphenation out of the box as *default* setting. Table of contents is
> also a piece of cake to do.

See Antonio's comments.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

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