meme_historian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 10 Mar 14:16
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This is an outrage! š§
nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
on 10 Mar 14:27
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Iāve been questioning the benefits every time someone insisted that I should use latex. Now I have scientific evidence that it wonāt make my life better!
fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 10 Mar 14:30
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Use latex. It will make your life better.
nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
on 10 Mar 14:33
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Well, latex users reported enjoying the software, so I will give you that credit.
anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works
on 10 Mar 17:43
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Clearly flawed methodology.
The value of LaTeX isnāt productivity when making a single document.
The value of LaTeX is productivity when you need to reuse past work, or update it with the latest data and figures, or make a collection of similar documents.
thevoidzero@lemmy.world
on 10 Mar 18:23
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And the ease with which you can generate hundreds of lines of page with a simple text template and code.
anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works
on 10 Mar 20:59
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Right.
Do your writing in text files accompanying the image files (figures). The LaTeX code is just instructions for how to render the various text sources arrange the figures on pages to be printed or rendered as slides.
It separates the flowing creative experience of writing and documenting what happened in the experiment from the fiddling creative experience of rendering, editing, and presentation to ensure that the text and figures line up appropriately and are on appropriate pages.
Separating fact finding from presentation is an important barrier in the scientific method.
Yup. When I rerun my things, in latex I just overwrite the plots file (pdf/png) and compile latex. In word I have to find where it was and replace it there. Itās way easier on latex if you make your code just write plot files in the same location.
anindefinitearticle@sh.itjust.works
on 10 Mar 21:26
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You can use a symlink to point to the figures directory of a certain run of the code. Add git history to the mix, and now you have an auditable record of what version of the codeās output ended up in each version of the paper.
Yup simlink is so nice. I sometimes use it for color vs monocrome plots. Change simlink and compile. Although I learned you can also use if statements in latex, I use that now.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works
on 11 Mar 17:07
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Exactly. Give them a bunch of setup, let them set it up as normal.
Then tell everyone to resize the second pictures and move all images from the side of the page to the right. Then see who does it first.
ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
on 10 Mar 18:21
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needs more jpeg.
but on a serious note, how do you version control an msoffice/libreoffice document? you canāt just put it in git, the repo will get huge quickly
gratux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 10 Mar 19:53
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docx is just a zip of xml files. if you add some hooks to git, you could make it unzip it, commit the xml files, then when checking out rezip it into a docx automatically.
white_nrdy@programming.dev
on 11 Mar 11:39
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Thanks, I hate it
ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
on 11 Mar 18:43
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git hooks! Totally forgot it, that sounds interesting
Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 11 Mar 06:09
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I think libreoffice has an uncompressed format for version control if I remember correctly
smiletolerantly@awful.systems
on 10 Mar 18:26
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Now judge it by how good the end result looks
But alsoā¦ The fuck?
Generous1146@beehaw.org
on 10 Mar 19:38
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Iāve wasted hours of my life, trying to insert an image in a word document without word compressing it, making it illegible, only to find out that itās impossible.
I canāt even imagine anything being worse at this point
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz
on 10 Mar 20:18
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Sure, but have you ever wasted hours of your life checking the documentation for the exact string of case-sensitive letters that force LaTeX not to yeet your image 45 pages further into the document, because thatās THE MOST PERFECT PLACE to put it?
I never get these commentsā¦ I never had these problems in Word and Iām using Office since Office 2003.
However what I did repeatedly see are users who, although Office has many possible workflows chose the most complex one and were then too stubborn to change
Sure, i canāt rule out user error, especially since im not a word expert. But the āsearching for an alternative workflow partā is the one that actually takes the most time.
In the end, the āsolutionā that worked was to cut up the diagram and put it on multiple pages. Sure, itās not elegant and maybe word had some built in features for this, but i couldnāt find them.
PartiallyApplied@lemmy.world
on 10 Mar 19:48
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Word definitely has its niche.
However, I find for many of my tasks, LaTeX or Typst just make sense. I donāt need to worry about out of date figures. I can customize styling instantly. I can track my changes with Git. Grammar checking is rough tho. lsp-like grammar checking would revolutionize my world lol.
I can personally attest that I transitioned to LaTeX from Word, when Word wouldnāt handle equations correctly, or would crash when I had too many. It doesnāt matter if I can put out 50 word equations faster than LaTeX if Iām breaking my flow state to restart my editor.
They overlap in their ecosystem niches but in no way is one a complete replacement for the other. LaTeX has a larger niche than Word which makes it a really safe default.
āNobody ever got fired for choosing Reactā
PartiallyApplied@lemmy.world
on 12 Mar 16:35
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Iāve done a bit more searching and it seems ltex-lsp-plus is the best out there for lsp grammar checking. Itās 1000x better than nothing, though the false negative rate is a bit high for my taste :)
whotookkarl@lemmy.world
on 10 Mar 21:41
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Storing text in binary formats like word docs instead of plain text like latex makes git version control unusable.
Maybe it takes more time because it allows more editing control over the finished product. The report of an enjoyable user experience for latex would back this up since users were able to produce what they wanted instead of being limited to using words jank as editing and just giving up or using a shitty template. Test against plain text entry I bet there is a positive correlation between limited features and total word count
flora_explora@beehaw.org
on 11 Mar 08:18
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Well, duh, I obviously learned LaTeX only to be less productive and procrastinate more. And when I was getting somewhere with it, I had to switch to RMarkdown instead to be able to procrastinate even more! Imagine actually having to think about the content of your work, ugh :/
threaded - newest
This is an outrage! š§
Iāve been questioning the benefits every time someone insisted that I should use latex. Now I have scientific evidence that it wonāt make my life better!
Use latex. It will make your life better.
Well, latex users reported enjoying the software, so I will give you that credit.
.
Thanks Satan !
Just write everything in markdown and use pandoc to type set.
That is what Obsidian is for.
.md .tex .md
<img alt="" src="https://lemmus.org/pictrs/image/d1ad6b57-c64f-4175-b4af-735e2827860e.webp">
latex exists to make your text look more professional, not to make you more productive, duh.
pig lipstick
/begin{outrage}
How dare they!?
/end{outrage}
.
Clearly flawed methodology.
The value of LaTeX isnāt productivity when making a single document.
The value of LaTeX is productivity when you need to reuse past work, or update it with the latest data and figures, or make a collection of similar documents.
And the ease with which you can generate hundreds of lines of page with a simple text template and code.
Right.
Do your writing in text files accompanying the image files (figures). The LaTeX code is just instructions for how to render the various text sources arrange the figures on pages to be printed or rendered as slides.
It separates the flowing creative experience of writing and documenting what happened in the experiment from the fiddling creative experience of rendering, editing, and presentation to ensure that the text and figures line up appropriately and are on appropriate pages.
Separating fact finding from presentation is an important barrier in the scientific method.
Yup. When I rerun my things, in latex I just overwrite the plots file (pdf/png) and compile latex. In word I have to find where it was and replace it there. Itās way easier on latex if you make your code just write plot files in the same location.
You can use a symlink to point to the
figuresdirectory of a certain run of the code. Add git history to the mix, and now you have an auditable record of what version of the codeās output ended up in each version of the paper.You can be so anal and precise about everything.
Yup simlink is so nice. I sometimes use it for color vs monocrome plots. Change simlink and compile. Although I learned you can also use if statements in latex, I use that now.
Exactly. Give them a bunch of setup, let them set it up as normal.
Then tell everyone to resize the second pictures and move all images from the side of the page to the right. Then see who does it first.
needs more jpeg.
but on a serious note, how do you version control an msoffice/libreoffice document? you canāt just put it in git, the repo will get huge quickly
docx is just a zip of xml files. if you add some hooks to git, you could make it unzip it, commit the xml files, then when checking out rezip it into a docx automatically.
Thanks, I hate it
git hooks! Totally forgot it, that sounds interesting
I think libreoffice has an uncompressed format for version control if I remember correctly
Now judge it by how good the end result looks
But alsoā¦ The fuck?
Iāve wasted hours of my life, trying to insert an image in a word document without word compressing it, making it illegible, only to find out that itās impossible. I canāt even imagine anything being worse at this point
Sure, but have you ever wasted hours of your life checking the documentation for the exact string of case-sensitive letters that force LaTeX not to yeet your image 45 pages further into the document, because thatās THE MOST PERFECT PLACE to put it?
I never get these commentsā¦ I never had these problems in Word and Iām using Office since Office 2003. However what I did repeatedly see are users who, although Office has many possible workflows chose the most complex one and were then too stubborn to change
Sure, i canāt rule out user error, especially since im not a word expert. But the āsearching for an alternative workflow partā is the one that actually takes the most time.
In the end, the āsolutionā that worked was to cut up the diagram and put it on multiple pages. Sure, itās not elegant and maybe word had some built in features for this, but i couldnāt find them.
Word definitely has its niche.
However, I find for many of my tasks, LaTeX or Typst just make sense. I donāt need to worry about out of date figures. I can customize styling instantly. I can track my changes with Git. Grammar checking is rough tho. lsp-like grammar checking would revolutionize my world lol.
I can personally attest that I transitioned to LaTeX from Word, when Word wouldnāt handle equations correctly, or would crash when I had too many. It doesnāt matter if I can put out 50 word equations faster than LaTeX if Iām breaking my flow state to restart my editor.
They overlap in their ecosystem niches but in no way is one a complete replacement for the other. LaTeX has a larger niche than Word which makes it a really safe default.
āNobody ever got fired for choosing Reactā
Iāve done a bit more searching and it seems ltex-lsp-plus is the best out there for lsp grammar checking. Itās 1000x better than nothing, though the false negative rate is a bit high for my taste :)
Storing text in binary formats like word docs instead of plain text like latex makes git version control unusable.
sample size seems small but im no expert
I used it for resumes and assignments in school. Like others said I wasnāt trying to save time but to make things look more professional.
I wonder how typst performs in this regard. That said, does anyone know how to more easily create a diagram?
mermaidjs
It can be rendered in LaTeX with a little work around.
Iām not sure what kind of diagram youāre after, but Typst has Cetz which is graphing + arbitrary drawing of shapes, paths, splines, etc.
Typst also has fletcher āmaker of arrowsā for diagrams which is my personal fave for the work I do
typst.app/universe/package/fletcher/
Maybe it takes more time because it allows more editing control over the finished product. The report of an enjoyable user experience for latex would back this up since users were able to produce what they wanted instead of being limited to using words jank as editing and just giving up or using a shitty template. Test against plain text entry I bet there is a positive correlation between limited features and total word count
Well, duh, I obviously learned LaTeX only to be less productive and procrastinate more. And when I was getting somewhere with it, I had to switch to RMarkdown instead to be able to procrastinate even more! Imagine actually having to think about the content of your work, ugh :/
Iām imagining what it would be like to write a page long {align} in word and itās terrifying.
Typst >>>>>.
But still, Word sucks ass.