What about something ala Neovim? I've only ever looked at Tex from the perspective of a user (I don't program my own macros too often), so I don't know how hard it'd be, but why not a language overhaul?
The issue is that so many man-centuries (man-millennia?) are invested into TeX & LaTeX that sinking time into something else is very, very expensive (much like trying to build a better CPU than amd64 or arm64).
TeX is really, really amazingly powerful. It can do almost anything a typesetter could want to do, fairly easily, and it can do just about everything, one way or another. And its output is heart-achingly beautiful. Sadly, the code necessary to achieve that output ranges from…heart-achingly beautiful to heart-breakingly ugly.
There are other projects out there, of course. I do think that TeX & LaTeX are close to a local maximum, if not al the way there.
XML isn't even really in the same field as TeX. TeX is for typesetting, that's all it does. XML is for encoding general data. It's like saying PDFs are way better than protocol buffers.
TeX is incredibly powerful, but it's also incredibly idiosyncratic. I also personally think Computer Modern is an ugly font.
The trouble is the ecosystem of packages that people would have to redo.
If you replaced TeX, LaTeX itself would need replacing, as would every single LaTeX package and class that you ever want to use, ones like microtype and stuff, would have to be rewritten.
To be honest, the multi-pass deal isn't that bad, but the macro expansion system is crazy complicated. Every once in a while after working in LaTeX I'll get the feeling I understand it, but that feeling inevitably dissipates after ten minutes or so.
Very much this. As far as I can gather TeX is actually rather simple - considering that it basically does what PostScript does. Now, while coding raw PostScript might be fun as an exercise, most would prefer not to. LaTeX lands somewhere between PostScript, and something higher up. To meaningfully replace Tex/LaTeX/Metafont and even just a selection of "the best" LaTeX packages... would be a herculean task.
Making a "new" TeX probably wouldn't be that hard - but it's also something that wouldn't be that useful. I would very much like something that's both simpler and also keeps some of the lessons learned/implemented (word spacing/splitting, page layout, page breaks etc).
As for other "tools in the same space", I do like pandoc a lot. I want to like python's ReST (Re-Structured Text) - but that's a package I feel is in need of a rewrite/redesign. Many good ideas there - but figuring out how to take a simple document and produce simple, modern (preferably somewhat semantic) html for example -- or to produce a decent looking PDF without needing all of LaTeX/Texlive on hand isn't easy.
Rewriting ReST tools would be a lot of work, but I think if one didn't try for 100% backwards (output, plugin) compatibility it might be worthwhile.
The astute reader will notice that ReST/Pandoc deals with structured documents, and not really layout for paper/screen (both use TeX/LaTeX as an output target/pipeline). I don't know of anything that comes close to TeX/LaTeX for "rasterized" output.
On the other hand, I also don't know of any package/combination that'll make TeX/LaTeX produce anything but messy, 90s-style html -- that generally looks awful. Even if you were to try and force a modern set of CSS down over the resulting mess. If anyone knows of a modern hypertext package for TeX/LaTeX or some similar tool, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
wtbob|10 years ago
TeX is really, really amazingly powerful. It can do almost anything a typesetter could want to do, fairly easily, and it can do just about everything, one way or another. And its output is heart-achingly beautiful. Sadly, the code necessary to achieve that output ranges from…heart-achingly beautiful to heart-breakingly ugly.
There are other projects out there, of course. I do think that TeX & LaTeX are close to a local maximum, if not al the way there.
XML, in comparison, is a booger joke.
dschep|10 years ago
Funny you say that since TeX's version scheme (in part) is that it approaches pi. And IIRC will be pi upon Knuth's death.
jandrese|10 years ago
TeX is incredibly powerful, but it's also incredibly idiosyncratic. I also personally think Computer Modern is an ugly font.
goalieca|10 years ago
A dried up booger on the floor.
CarVac|10 years ago
If you replaced TeX, LaTeX itself would need replacing, as would every single LaTeX package and class that you ever want to use, ones like microtype and stuff, would have to be rewritten.
To be honest, the multi-pass deal isn't that bad, but the macro expansion system is crazy complicated. Every once in a while after working in LaTeX I'll get the feeling I understand it, but that feeling inevitably dissipates after ten minutes or so.
e12e|10 years ago
Making a "new" TeX probably wouldn't be that hard - but it's also something that wouldn't be that useful. I would very much like something that's both simpler and also keeps some of the lessons learned/implemented (word spacing/splitting, page layout, page breaks etc).
As for other "tools in the same space", I do like pandoc a lot. I want to like python's ReST (Re-Structured Text) - but that's a package I feel is in need of a rewrite/redesign. Many good ideas there - but figuring out how to take a simple document and produce simple, modern (preferably somewhat semantic) html for example -- or to produce a decent looking PDF without needing all of LaTeX/Texlive on hand isn't easy.
Rewriting ReST tools would be a lot of work, but I think if one didn't try for 100% backwards (output, plugin) compatibility it might be worthwhile.
The astute reader will notice that ReST/Pandoc deals with structured documents, and not really layout for paper/screen (both use TeX/LaTeX as an output target/pipeline). I don't know of anything that comes close to TeX/LaTeX for "rasterized" output.
On the other hand, I also don't know of any package/combination that'll make TeX/LaTeX produce anything but messy, 90s-style html -- that generally looks awful. Even if you were to try and force a modern set of CSS down over the resulting mess. If anyone knows of a modern hypertext package for TeX/LaTeX or some similar tool, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
_delirium|10 years ago