[rescue] In defence of TeX/LaTeX - Re: [off-topic] What was this markup language?

[Toby Thain]

On 2015-12-08 12:09 PM, microcode at zoho.com wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 08, 2015 at 04:59:35PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On 8 December 2015 at 14:14,  <microcode at zoho.com> wrote:
>>> Next question, other than LaTeX, are there any good choices in simple
>> markup
>>> languages suitable for writing letters and resumes, etc.? I'm not really
>>> happy with Open/Libre Office nor the direction it's going in. I'd like to
>>> look into some alternative where the input stays as ASCII text.
>>
>>
>> LyX?
>>
>> http://www.lyx.org/
>>
>> Can't get on with it myself but some do.
>
> Agreed. The last thing I want is another editor dependency. The whole thing
> is about being able to keep stuff in ASCII text and be able to get at it
> from anything that reads ASCII and not depend on GUI stuff.
>
> And at this point I am probably too old to start learning LaTeX and would
> not use it enough to justify the hair-pulling.

Eh, it's not that bad, actually - certainly the most practical 
typographic markup I've seen in 30 years. It also has dozens of good 
tutorial and reference books.

Of course it all depends what you're doing. If you have anything 
mathematical or slightly non trivial formatting, or anything that would 
benefit from a macro system, then likely it is a win over Word. (My only 
problem with TeX/LaTeX is the font family CMR, but that's another 
story... I used TeX daily with PostScript fonts for several years around 
1990.)

Of course the input format is ASCII so it meets your 
accessibility/archiveability bar, and is also ideal for version control.

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