mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Henri Lesourd <address@hidden>]

> IMO there is very little hope that this will happen any time soon for the
> writing of scientific articles (most scientists already have what they
> consider to be a satisfactory solution; even if TeXmacs would objectively be
> better then say latex, the productivity gain would have to be to enormous to
> overcome the inertia). 
>
>  
Yes, but it is already quite better in lots of tedious areas of LaTeX,
let's say formulas, & arrays, to name a few.

I agree with you that the inertia is quite heavy (this is not specific
to TeXmacs at all : it happens all the time, in most of other softwares
in fact).

But also, it should be noted that as soon as they are a little
bit exposed to TeXmacs, newcomers become much less inclined to
fall into the LaTeX addiction trap that elders. So some hope remains
for the future ;-)


> TeXmacs whilst certainly being and impressive feat (I certainly hope that
> whatever will establish itself eventually for scientific writing will be as
> effective for formula editing as TeXmacs is), IMO compares unfavorably to
> Emacs/AucTex in too many points to render it an attractive alternative for
> scientific articles for an experienced Emacs/AucTex user; if you really want
> to know in more detail I'd be happy to expand.
>
>  
Please, do not refrain yourself for expanding more on this ! I would
enjoy a lot to gain a better understanding of the many points you
mention, I don't see them clearly (but I'm probably too much TeXmacs
focused, this is perhaps part of the problem :-).

As far as I can see, AucTeX provides you with a very
nice syntactic coloring, and even with some mix between
compiled LaTeX and the LaTeX source, but it is in fact
not wysiwyg !

And as far as tediousness is concerned, you are left with the
burden of multi-embedded '{' and '}' for arrays, LaTeX-source
formulas, and the like. Isn't it the case ?

So how could it be that you feel AucTeX is better suited to
your needs ?


> > <TeXmacs|1.0.5.11> <style|generic> <\body> First page
> >    
>
> [snip ]
>
> What version of texmacs do I need for this? I get an empty page with Ubuntu
> (but the latest texmacs package here is 1.0.3). I downloaded the latest
> precompiled binary but that seems to make no difference (texmacs --version
> gives 1.0.5).
>
>  
The first alpha release of graphics is very recent, it comes
with the version 1.0.5.9 of TeXmacs. The one in 1.0.5.10
is more polished ; the 1.0 stable version is to be released
soon (in some weeks, or something like that).

So as far as 'right now' is concerned, I'm afraid that you
need to download the CVS version...


Best, Henri