On Saturday 02 June 2007 16:58, Alan G Isaac wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jun 2007, Steve Litt apparently wrote:
> > In preparation for writing my math book (and creating the appropriate
> > paragraph and character styles), I'm reading the math chapter of "TeX for
> > the Impatient". Once again I marvel at how much easier it is to
> > understand TeX than LaTeX, and how TeX knowledge is a great stepping
> > stone to LaTeX.
>
> You must not have finished the chapter yet. ;-)
> (E.g., equation numbering and alignment.)
>
> More seriously, almost all of the constructs this chapter
> *are* part of LaTeX. Compare for example the discussion of
> math in Lamport's book or in lshort.pdf.
>
> The key differences (from this chapter) in are LaTeX's
> practice of explicitly beginning and ending environment,
> which is often helpful.
>
> And you can use
> $$ f(x) = x^{2} $$
> in LaTeX if you want,
> even if
> \[ f(x) = x^{2} \]
> or
> \begin{equation*}
> f(x) = x^{2}
> \end{equation*}
> are more idiomatic.
> (The last assumes the amsmath package is loaded.)
>
> There are reasons to advocate plain TeX, but I do not think
> this chapter illustrates them.
Hi Alan,
This gets subtle. I'm not advocating plain TeX, I'm advocating *learning*
plain TeX, on the theory that its simplicity makes learning LaTeX easier.
Before today, I'd never done anything with math in LyX, LaTeX or TeX. LyX /AMS
Book was Greek to me, so I studied TeX for the Impatient, did a few examples,
and understood much of it.
Then I read (not completely yet) the "Mathematical Formulas" chapter of "Guide
to LaTeX", fourth edition. Enough was familiar from TeX that I absorbed the
material fairly quickly, whereas I imagine (though I cannot prove it) that if
I'd not studied TeX first, I'd have had immense trouble with LaTeX.
So when I repeatedly recommend "TeX For the Impatient", it's not as a
substitute for LaTeX, it's as a learning step for LaTeX, and sometimes as a
way to fine tune LaTeX to do exactly what you want.
SteveT
Steve Litt
Author: Universal Troubleshooting Process books and courseware
http://www.troubleshooters.com/
