[HN Gopher] The TeX tuneup of 2021 [pdf]
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The TeX tuneup of 2021 [pdf]
Author : EvgeniyZh
Score : 75 points
Date : 2021-04-10 08:45 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tug.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (tug.org)
| guidoism wrote:
| Knuth added Oxford commas to the master web files. So, I guess we
| can all say that we are done here. Goodnight.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| The stackexchange username Xiao Sa Zhang , listed in the
| references, cannot be highlighted. Does TeX not render chinese
| characters as text?
| Tomte wrote:
| TeX is limited to 127(?) characters, there are several font
| encoding schemes, none of which are suitable for Chinese.
|
| XeTeX and LuaTeX use Unicode, and thus could render the Chinese
| name as text. But they are extensions of TeX, not TeX proper,
| which is what Knuth himself uses.
| drfuchs wrote:
| 256; used to be 128 way back when.
| nanna wrote:
| Not sure about TeX but would be surprised if there were issues
| with Chinese characters in LuaLaTeX or XeLaTeX. It's very
| uncommon to write in plain TeX today, Knuth is an exception.
| hyakosm wrote:
| In this document, it's rendered in bitmap.
| nsajko wrote:
| This ancient implementation of TeX is still widely used, but note
| that there were historically many other implementations, and the
| current one is LuaTeX, together with its experimental fork called
| LuaMetaTex:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LuaTeX
|
| https://www.pragma-ade.nl/general/manuals/luametatex.pdf
|
| Similarly, the (less) ancient LaTeX is still widely used, in
| spite of the existence of the (not so new, but still actively
| developed) ConTeXt:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConTeXt
| coliveira wrote:
| LuaTeX is in no way the "current implementation", it is one of
| the modern extensions of TeX, but the core is still the same.
| By the way, Knuth wrote TeX in a dialect of Pascal, and the
| original code has been automatically translated to C and used
| in all modern versions.
| gus_massa wrote:
| No. This is the canonical implementation written and maintained
| by Knuth himself.
|
| Now there are a few alternative implementations. Wikipedia
| list:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LuaTeX
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PdfTeX
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XeTeX
|
| I think all of them have more features like better Unicode
| support, but probably also more bugs.
| einpoklum wrote:
| For various languages - at least Farsi, Arabic and Hebrew -
| the common wisdom and vast majority of users (AFAICT) have
| moved or are moving to XeTeX as the compiler. The polyglossia
| package, which is the modern replacement of babel, requires
| XeTeX. IIANM, the effective Unicode + multi-language support
| of the other two is not at the same level.
| nanna wrote:
| I don't actually think LuaTeX is capable of even handling
| right to left languages like Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi. Only
| XeLaTeX is. Or am I wrong?
| andrepd wrote:
| You are confusing some things. LaTeX is a set of macros written
| in TeX, as is ConTeXt. TeX, pdfTeX, XeTeX, and LuaTeX, are all
| TeX compilers. LuaTeX is not "the current one" in any
| meaningful way. The most widely used one is pdfTeX.
| nsajko wrote:
| I don't see what things am I confusing. But I should have
| been more clear: when I said that LuaTeX is current, I was
| referring to how it's still being actively developed. AFAIK
| pdfTeX and XeTeX get just the occasional bug fix.
| nanna wrote:
| Usage of (La)TeX has exploded in recent years, thanks in no small
| part to Overleaf. Unfortunately the project itself has still been
| struggling financially, so if you've got the means and want to
| support its development then do consider joining TUG, the TeX
| Users Group, the global org which coordinates it's development
| and community.
|
| Perks include being posted copies of TUGboat, the excellent
| magazine that this Knuth piece is a preprint from. They also send
| you a DVD of the latest TeXlive, if you want it, you get to vote
| TUGs elections (or stand if you want!), invites to the annual
| conference, and get discounts on various (La)TeX, typography, and
| Knuth books.
|
| https://tug.org/forms/current/memberapp.html
| evanb wrote:
| Some of my collaborators use Overleaf with the git bridge to
| interact with our version-controlled drafts. The git bridge is
| broken, and overwrites git filemodes, erasing executable bits
| without the user's request; even on files that the Overleaf
| user doesn't touch. This breaks scripts that we need to produce
| figures. Every time we have a new paper to work on we have a
| problem.
|
| It drives me crazy. Overleaf claims that this would require a
| nontrivial overhaul of their software, which I find hard to
| believe. But their code is complicated enough that I can't just
| look at it and find the fix.
|
| https://github.com/overleaf/overleaf/issues/765
| macmac wrote:
| Ironically the link to Knuth's website found in the References
| [1] is broken due to a linebreak in the url.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's plain text. Chrome infers a wrong link, a couple other
| viewers I checked do not infer any link.
| [deleted]
| bluenose69 wrote:
| Knuth has a way of adding life to what might otherwise be dry
| material. At least to those of us who admire the man and his
| contributions, this essay reads like a thriller. I knew from the
| start that what he said would not matter to me, but yet I was
| drawn from sentence to sentence, powerless to turn away.
|
| Is it just that I'm a fan, having read [1] as a science student?
| I don't think so, because when I recommend that essay to a
| student who is frustrated with msword, I almost always get a
| report about how intriguing it is.
|
| Beyond the material, I think a big factor is that it's simply
| intriguing to hear what a clear thinker spends time thinking
| about.
|
| 1. Knuth, Donald E. "Mathematical Typography." Bull. Amer. Math.
| Soc. (N.S.) 1, no. 2 (March 1979): 337-72
| https://projecteuclid.org:443/euclid.bams/1183544082
| brudgers wrote:
| _TAoCP_ is a great book simply in terms of books. It is a
| plausible candidate as the most important book from the current
| era. [1] By extension, Knuth is a great writer and his skill in
| language goes beyond English into mathematics and the logical
| notation of computer algorithms...like Tolkien, Knuth invents
| languages in order to enrich his stories. Unlike Tolkien his
| languages are useful to other scholars.
|
| [1] Note I said "plausible." The standard for a rebuttal is
| implausibility.
| throw0101a wrote:
| *TeX
|
| :)
| nanna wrote:
| This is a good point, the title is wrong!
|
| Knuth named it TeX, with an 'out if kilter' e, to distinguish
| it from TEX, the Text EXecutive programming language developed
| by Honeywell. (Knuth, _The TeXbook_ , p. 1)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Executive_Programming_L...
| Someone wrote:
| Reading https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183544082 and
| https://www.saildart.org/TEXDR.AFT%5B1,DEK%5D1, Knuth
| originally named it TEX and later renamed it to TeX.
| smitty1e wrote:
| The tug page has the boxed set mentioned, but it does not appear
| to be the 35th Jubilee Edition => http://tug.org/books/#dek
|
| Nor does the publisher have any joy yet =>
| https://www.informit.com/search/index.aspx?query=knuth
|
| _crosses arms, taps toe_
| gjvc wrote:
| Highlight from the article.
|
| """ And my fondest recollection from that day was the beaming
| face of A-W's cofounder, Mel Cummings, as he held those five
| volumes in his hands with obvious pride and satisfaction. He had
| spent his life in the printing industry, and devoted it to
| producing technical books of the finest quality; so I was
| delighted to see his delight. """
|
| I met Professor Knuth on his visit to Oxford, UK in 2000, and he
| was gracious enough to sign my TAoCP volumes.
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