From: David B. Held (dheld_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-01 17:55:56
Jeff Garland wrote:
> [Doug wrote]:
> >FWIW, the LaTeX prototype would have to be pretty amazing to get my
> >vote.
>
> I agree. I think it is difficult for LaTeX to compete here on the
> following grounds:
> 1) XML is less of a learning curve for those already using HTML
I second that. I feel I could learn an XML format more easily than
LaTeX. My one foray into LaTeX gave me the impression that it was very
powerful and very scary. A little like awk/sed.
> 2) Web browsers are building (or have) direct support for XML and XSL
> which eliminates the browsing tool issue.
Which is nice, because even though I downloaded and installed MiKTek, it
seemed like a lot of work to get things done. I didn't try very hard,
but it's certainly more work than firing up a text editor and browser
(which I presume almost everyone has).
> 3) Lots of projects are using XML so programmers are more likely to
> know about it and the tools
Right. The people I know personally who advocate *TeX seem to be
academics rather than programmers.
> [...]
Dave