Re: [tlug] Poll: OpenOffice or LibreOffice?

[Bruno Raoult <braoult@example.com>]

On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 10:03 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull
<stephen@example.com> wrote:
> Bruno Raoult writes:
>  > On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 3:28 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
>  > > Raymond Wan writes:
>  > >
>  > >  > I love LaTeX and try to do as much as I can with it.
>  >
>  > Am I the only one who cannot write LaTeX here? I tried to make a
>  > simple Haiku (3 lines), plus a title, plus my name. It was at the
>  > time my wife started to write her book.
>
> You're probably not the only one who can't write LaTeX, but I bet
> you're in the minority on this list.

Oh. I am surprised. I did learn Emacs at school, and still use it as
main editor. However, my
school never asked for LaTeX format (mid 80'). But it was not
maths-oriented, I must
concede, and plain text on paper was the way to exchange/submit
documents (we did not
have email), and even floppy usage was not easy.

> The other reason for learning LaTeX is that you actually have an
> esthetic sense for a beautiful page, whether there's math on it or
> poetry.  Most Word templates look like they were designed by an
> accountant in purchasing responsible for saving on paper and ink
> costs.  By the way, as always Google is my friend:
>
>   http://homepage3.nifty.com/xymtex/fujitas2/texlatex/tateyoko/haiku.sty

I will have a look. But I really wonder if it is worth the time, for 3
lines. Google Docs
will do the job, and export to whatever I need.

>  > I believe it will die with the eldest people here.
>
> Now, *that* is highly unlikely.  There just is no good way to write
> math yet that isn't based on TeX.  Word is hopeless.  Clueless people
> learn to create passable math with LaTeX *much* faster than they do
> with Word in my experience.  Most Word users never do get acceptable
> output (well, not by the time they submit their theses, anyway).
> Maxima/Maple/Mathematica aren't too bad, but they write "stupid"
> LaTeX, which is hard to edit for beauty (as opposed to mathematical
> correctness).
< [...]
> Eventually Mathematica will probably get smart enough to remember your
> substitutions and create TeX macros for that notation, but until then
> people who program, who care about beautiful programs and beautiful
> prose, and who at least occasionally write math, will continue to use
> LaTeX.

Is that all? for maths only?

> Funny ... sometime this week Japanese television is doing a
> retrospective on Bobby Fischer ... and the Japanese don't even play
> that kind of chess (they have Japanese chess, called "shogi").  And
> Sugishita Ukio plays (Western) chess!  Quite well, it seems.

<OT>
it goes off topic, but I want to write a little on this.
Japan was involved (IMHO badly) a lot in Fischer's case, after his second match
against Spassky, when US wanted to catch him.
I did not know at the moment, but I met his girl friend (Miyoko
Wataiwho) who managed the Tokyo Chess Club
and the JCS at that time.
Fischer was apparently visiting the club from time to time at this exact moment.
But I did not met him, unfortunately. Having a game against him would
have been the
best day in my life, and the game sheet would be proudly attached on
the wall, he is really
my hero in chess :-)

I did not say all games are dead. Chess is, because it was really a
focus for programmers for decades.
In fact since the 40s-50s.
Kasparov's loss against Deep Blue was the turning point, and quite a
shock at that moment.
Shogi and Xiangqi will probably follow the path very soon, in a couple
of years (if not already done).
Go will have some more time, but no doubt this will happen in a not so
far future (the challenge is
of another magnitude, but it will happen).
Note: I play shogi (badly) too.
</OT>

To come back to our subject,

My point was: Do children should learn chess today? I would say "no",
as the competition value died, and the fun too.
This is an historical game, and current champions are likely near the last ones.
Your beautiful chess game is likely already with the checkers one,
somewhere in garage.

The analogy is: Should "normal" people learn Emacs or LaTeX today?
Even programmers?
No (for me), again (except for 0.001% of people who have a good reason
to use them).
I don't say they are bad (as I won't say chess is a bad game).
LaTeX could be a good format (maybe the best, you will say), but
people should not have to care the file format. They need a simple interface,
which will render correctly, for mostly 3-4 cases:
- printing at home (this is mostly postscript - I mean before final
printer specific language)
- correct display on screen
- sending to a publisher (today they mostly want Word or PDF)
- sharing RW with someone to edit
The underlying format is meaningless for most of us. The source could
be anything, and nobody cares.

IMHO, LaTeX will follow chess, soon or later: A memory in Wikipedia.

I may be totally wrong, but this is my feeling.

br.

-- 
2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2.