Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Jaka Kranjc <smgl AT lynxlynx.info>]

On Tuesday 02 of September 2008 10:08:12 Remko van der Vossen wrote:
> I would very much be in favour of LaTeX documentation, there
> are quite a number of tools to create other forms from the LaTeX (html
> single page, multi page and framed, man pages, texinfo pages and txt) in
> addition to the regular dvi, ps and pdf.
There is no wiki with inherent latex syntax afaik. Without a wiki, we lose 
public colaborative editing, don't we? A BLOCKER as any.

> I feel LaTeX is many times more transparent than wiki markup, I mean,
> what's easier to understand \textbf{foobar} or '''foobar'''. It will
> only take a little to realise bf stands for boldface and once you know
> it you won't forget it because of the clear contextual link. In the case
> of wiki markup however I have to look up the insane markup each and and
> every time. And is most definately something that is holding me back
> from contributing more to the wiki/documentation.
This is moinmoin's fault, some other wikis have a much more sensible syntax 
('''''for bold italic''''' is so ancient). moinmoin also has the help spread 
out in various pages and there is no way to see the site map afaik.
LaTeX isn't that transparent either. Ok, we could have a quick reference page 
with all the common syntax, but imagine all the escaping / environments we 
would need. If you use ^ (eg. repair files) or _ (every second spell file) 
mathmode is turned on and things get formatted as equations.

And sure, it can do custom commands, includes and quadratic wheels, but do we 
really need that?

LP
-- 
We cannot command nature except by obeying her.  --Sir Francis Bacon
Have a sourcerous day! www.sourcemage.org

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