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Re: Which editor do you use for math articles

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg95549] Re: Which editor do you use for math articles
• From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
• Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:46:57 -0500 (EST)
• Organization: Stanford University
• References: <200901161109.GAA14132@smc.vnet.net> <gkscfe$eet$1@smc.vnet.net> <gl4a03$gah$1@smc.vnet.net>

> > Then Blue Sky, the company  
> > that makes Textures, failed to come up with a Mac OS X compatible  
> > version and most users reluctantly drifted away to other programs. But =
>  
> > if you look mailing lists where TeX on Mac OS is discussed you will  
> > find that many are intending to return (even though it will cost them  
> > money) as soon as a full featured version is again available. Which  
> > only proves that standard, free implementations of TeX are far form  
> > the sort of thing some make them out to be. I strongly recommend you  
> > to try TeX, but I suspect you will be soon back to using Mathematica  

As an intensive user of Textures from its beginning right up to its 
(apparent) end a few years back, I fully agree that Textures was an 
absolutely superb, almost unbelievably good implementation of TeX for 
the Mac up through OS 9.  Wanting to be able to continuing using 
Textures in fact kept me on OS 9 after OS X came out for far longer than 
I should have stayed with it.

I also fully agree that whatever has been going on with Blue Sky and 
Textures since then seems to be weird, garbled, bizarre, and sad 
(perhaps even more so than some of the weird and bizarre aspects of 
Wolfram and Mathematica since Version 5).

But as someone who eventually made the transition to the TeXLive and 
TeXShop implementation of TeX for the Mac that's distributed on CDs to 
members of TUG (requiring only the very modest dues that TUB charges), I 
can also attest that this implementation is also really quite good, not 
too painful to get installed and running, and then perfectly usable.

The skilled volunteers who assemble this CD could still benefit from a 
few lessons in how to prepare simple, clear and helpful instructions and 
user documentation, especially for new or novice users.  But their 
documentation failings are nothing like the documentation idiocies in 
those areas that Mathematica now seems trapped in.

• References:
  • Which editor do you use for math articles
    • From: TL <latev@shaw.ca>