Warnings, etc
It has come to my attention that those who don't know me really well are unaware of my great hatred toward writing conclusions and consequental tendency to make sweeping, most likely untrue statements that should largely be ignored, so I wanted to set you straight in case I accidentally insult your field and/or make statements that one of your main goals in life is to prevent.
Hmm. That was a strangely constructed sentence.
Anyhow, I have also decided that I will not be posting any more comments about what software I like or dislike because I have come to the conclusion that I am not normal, and that my musings are too stressful to spautz. I was thinking about software I use, and I came to the conclusion that practically every program I use on a daily basis is not user friendly. I generally consider these things easy to learn, and easy to use once learned, but they're certainly not easy to pick up without references. These programs include Linux, emacs, LaTeX, xmgrace, ssh, sftp, and tar. I think I use two relatively user-friendly applications on a daily basis: Firefox and Evolution (an email client). This is just my uneducated assessment, of course.
Also, aside from the wine updates (which are arguably how I study for wine class), most of the stuff I put up is just stuff I've been thinking about, and is not intended to educate, anger, entertain, or otherwise provoke an emotional response.
You have been warned.
Hmm. That was a strangely constructed sentence.
Anyhow, I have also decided that I will not be posting any more comments about what software I like or dislike because I have come to the conclusion that I am not normal, and that my musings are too stressful to spautz. I was thinking about software I use, and I came to the conclusion that practically every program I use on a daily basis is not user friendly. I generally consider these things easy to learn, and easy to use once learned, but they're certainly not easy to pick up without references. These programs include Linux, emacs, LaTeX, xmgrace, ssh, sftp, and tar. I think I use two relatively user-friendly applications on a daily basis: Firefox and Evolution (an email client). This is just my uneducated assessment, of course.
Also, aside from the wine updates (which are arguably how I study for wine class), most of the stuff I put up is just stuff I've been thinking about, and is not intended to educate, anger, entertain, or otherwise provoke an emotional response.
You have been warned.
posted by megan at
1:17 PM
1 Comments:
Linux isn't really a program per se.
emacs and LaTeX rock
Steve is partially incorrect about why LaTeX is desirable. It's really just an extension of TeX, which is designed for publishers, so that they have a markup language that allows them to do advanced document layout. It has a number of big advantages. There are a lot of things you may want to specify by hand that a graphical interface can't handle. (I've done page layout before. Measuring distances in a graphical environment is annoying, and your best friend is a dialog box that lets you specify manually where to place an object.) Its interface is more naturally portable and accessible. You don't need to have TeX installed or on your system in order to write a TeX document. You can compare differences between TeX documents using already-available UNIX tools. You can alter TeX documents using already-available line-oriented UNIX tools. You can compile your TeX documents using a remote terminal connection (ssh). The formats it compiles to are widely accessible (DVI, PS, and PDF).
LaTeX is a macro set for TeX that makes the tools available in TeX accessible to a group that is particularly interested in them but does not want to fully understand (and put the rather large amount of effort into) page layout.
I think rather insulting that the assumption is that one should be using Word. If you tell someone that you use LaTeX, they ask you why you're not using Word. Apparently the answer, "it doesn't do what I want it to" is not sufficient for some people. LaTeX does. That makes the decision rather clear.
You might think that professors like to make people use LaTeX. I don't think anyone should be making other people use anything, but I did notice that pretty much everyone else tries to make you use Word, and your arguments apply to that, too. If you don't use Word (or OpenOffice), you can't share that document format with people who do. Now if you write a LaTeX document, others won't be able to understand it in full, but they'll be able to use it. I've even had people who don't know LaTeX edit my documents. It's not that hard to figure out what sections are the text.
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Anonymous, at 8:42 PM
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