Re: Which editor do you use for math articles
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg95453] Re: Which editor do you use for math articles
- From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
- Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:56:35 -0500 (EST)
- Organization: Stanford University
- References: <gksbnh$dr2$1@smc.vnet.net> <gkv08u$dck$1@smc.vnet.net>
In article <gkv08u$dck$1 at smc.vnet.net>, I joined the chorus in this thread saying that for document preparation (where "document" can be taken broadly to include all kinds of documents and presentations), a modular or multi-tool approach generally involving TeX plus PDF is in every way preferable to any sort of "Mathematica-only" approach -- and I'm encouraged to see a number of other people independently saying more or less the same thing. I also gave a list of what seemed to me the main benefits of this modular or multi-tool approach, but I overlooked one. It's been added in below: ----------- > Bottom lines: > > 1) If you do the above, you'll be using Mathematica for the one thing > it's really good at -- and using other, much better tools for the tasks > that Mathematica is not at all good at. > > 2) You'll have immensely more flexibility for making changes or > tweaking things at each stage in the process, without going all the way > back to the beginning, as well as great flexibility for re-using or > re-purposing individual parts or components of your documents. And, > your tools for doing this will be essentially WYSIWYG, and will have > much better documentation. *** 2.5) You'll have meaningful backward compatibility or long-term *** stability, in the sense that if you want to go back and reuse or *** modify some project or set of files that you created say five or *** ten years ago, the file formats for your output documents will *** still be valid and usable, and the source files will likely be also *** still be usable with minimal modification. > 3) You'll also be "in the mainstream" so far as document preparation, > publication, and distribution in the real world is concerned. > > 4) And finally, you might note that the total cost of these additional > tools (including their upgrades or support) will only be a fraction of > you paid for Mathematica. ----------