detailed
In detail, only from the perspective of thesis writing, that is to say, use the computer to type out what you want to write, draw the picture and work out the calculation results. In this sense,
For example, reduce the price by+R.
Feasibility, this is actually the way that every author hopes, and it should also be the goal pursued by developers-separation of content and format, and direct output of calculation results to documents. But judging from the current situation and future trends,
In terms of potential, I think Markdown+R or some other scientific computing languages (such as SageTeX and SciPy) or drawing programs (such as
TeXGraph (Gnuplot) cannot be LaTeX.
On the contrary, because what they do is to write and add simple marks. In addition, it should be mentioned that there are many attempts to combine writing with calculation. I think R.
That's not the point. In addition to the examples mentioned above, both TeXmacs and Scientific Workplace support calculation and drawing directly in written form. matlab
Even writing articles and calculations directly in MS Word and directly in Mathematica are not satisfactory. However, they still can't replace LaTeX as the most typesetting tool (they only involve the simplest marks or the most basic typesetting, and can't set and adjust the layout and text carefully).
that
In fact, our current target format is PDF. To put it bluntly, the latex.
Code is also an intermediate process. We hope that the author can write in a simple markup language (such as Markdown) and add some scientific computing languages, so that we can get the calculation results directly.
Come, and then generate the "specification for typesetting of scientific and technological documents" PDF. Now looking at various implementations, the last step is to get (La)TeX.
To complete (out of TeXmacs, Mahtematica and Scientific Workplace, of course), it is actually machine-generated (La)TeX.
The code is also very limited. Do you think that directly written (La)TeX code may not be able to typeset a good article? Do you use this second-hand machine to produce (La)TeX?
Perfect password cracking? If you want to typeset, you still need to manually adjust the (La)TeX code. If the typesetting requirements are not high, if you look at it yourself, the workload is not very large and acceptable. After all,
The labeling of (La)TeX is a bit cumbersome. But if it is a long article and pays attention to real typesetting, the workload will be even greater, even more than writing LaTeX directly.
The code is troublesome.
Therefore, it has certain use value. After all, although the label is simple, it has great limitations and cannot replace LaTeX.
Let's talk more nonsense:
Let's see what is price reduction:
"Price reduction" is two things:
(1) plain text format syntax; and
(2) A software tool written in perl, which can convert plain text format into html format. Its philosophy is:
this
The primary design goal of Markdown format grammar is
As easy to read as possible. The idea is, a document in reduced price format.
It should be published as it is, as plain text, not as it looks.
Marked with a label or format description.
This is the original Markdown syntax (markup) and the conversion program (markdown.pl). It can be seen that it was not originally used for typesetting, but for some simple formatting, and it is hoped that only plain text can clearly reflect the format and make the mark look natural.
After ...
Markdown became popular because of its simplicity and ease of use, but it also found its shortcomings in many aspects, even though it can write html directly.
To realize more tags, but we naturally refuse to be limited to this, so we have many extensions and variants by combining the existing tags such as org-mode and rst. For example, reducing prices
Extra，MultiMarkdown，Maruku，kramdown，Pandoc Markdown，Github
Price reduction, stack exchange price reduction
Wait a minute. They have made many changes in the marking and conversion program, and can support various output formats. My favorite and I think the most promising Pandoc, in
Markdown has made many extensions, including LaTeX.
Tables, tables, references, cross-references, headers and footers, and chart titles can all be combined, but even so, is it enough for paper typesetting? Moreover, after adding these complicated things, it is obvious that
Obviously, the original text can't follow the original idea (a markdown-formed document should)
Can be published as it is, as plain text, it doesn't look like it has been marked.
Tag or format description). It's just another wheel. It's not functional.
one
Most people just think that TeX is just a kind of mark, such as bold, diagonal lines, chapters, illustrations, hyperlinks and so on. In particular, they think it's just a sign of a mathematical formula, so they think about these things.
Markdown (plus extension) is ok, which is actually a limited understanding of the word "typesetting" It is this that makes people think that Markdown can replace LaTeX.
Yes Plastic coating
As a typesetting program, most people don't pay much attention. This is really not what the average author needs to pay attention to, but it does exist and has its unshakable position. Actually, as I said before, anyway, we are the most
The final typesetting is done by TeX, if LaTeX is written directly.
It is difficult to complete the code well, especially the second-hand code. Some mechanical things can be realized by transformation (such as generating the code of tables), but typesetting is not entirely mechanical labor. Familiar web pages
The typesetting of the content is completed by the browser, marked with HTML+style CSS+ auxiliary program JS.
Then you can complete the typesetting, and some JS use the TeX algorithm to complete the typesetting of web pages, such as
Hyphenator.js, but web page typesetting is different from printing typesetting after all. People who standardize web pages hope to be able to handle the actual printing and typesetting, but it seems naive now. Arrangement of web page content
There is still a big gap between printing and typesetting, so I can't comment in the future.