UNIX Philosophy
UNIX Philosophy
Why use LaTeX over word? Why use Markdown over google sheets? Why use Astro over webflow?
Why Use Latex over Word?
Latex Does what You Ask
Reddit comment: latex does what you ask
The thing about LaTeX is that when you delete a paragraph, an adjacent paragraph doesn’t suddenly become bold, italic, underline, Comic Sans.
If you come across a formatting gremlin in LaTeX, you know it’s your fault. You know LaTeX is doing exactly what you’ve told it to, and you know that it is rational and so you can work out what is wrong even if it takes a while. And when you do sort it m, you say “ah, yes, of course”.
With Word you have no idea what’s going on, how the formatting is managed internally is beyond weird. And when (if) you manage to sort it you say “WTF! why? Who could possibly …? I mean what the actual ….. aaaagh!!!”
Latex Follows the Unix Philosophy
Reddit comment: Latex follows the Unix Philosophy
LaTeX is about a lot more than just nice looking equations.
For me one of the main appeals is that it’s open source; I’m not reliant on any corporation who can change pricing schemes, document formats, or make UI new choices I have no control over at any moment. I can install it wherever I want, including servers and virtual machines without paying any additional cost or worrying about licensing.
It’s truly cross-platform: I can use it on Linux or FreeBSD and not just those OSes Microsoft preapproves.
Another main appeal is that it’s a Plain text based format and thus works easily with any software that can process plain text, including standard Unix tools; it can be produced and manipulated and automated by any programming language, and I don’t have to worry about my files ever becoming inaccessible.
Its ecosystem follows the Unix philosophy; I can choose how it fits within my entire toolchain. I can use whatever text editor I want to produce my documents. I can view the output in any PDF viewer. I can use whatever I want for my bibliography management. My hands are not tied to using one company’s stuff to get things to work well together. I can track revisions with whatever version control software I want: use git or anything else.
The UNIX Philosophy
Always Organising (while being in mess). Always optimising Important Qualities of Engineering [[UNIX Philosophy]] What Do We Do Now? [[How should we organise?]]