Converting between LaTeX and X-expressions sounds like a good step forward.
As a meta-point though, In my personal experience, X-as-a-LaTeX-front-end breaks down really easily when trying to do something non-trivial. For example, this bug[1] in pandoc has been open for a while and on the face of it should be easy to do. Perhaps it’s worth clarifying (with input from interested users) what kinds of workflows or documents we're looking to produce and try to figure out a set of technical challenges from there? I’m an academic computer scientist and use LaTeX for pretty much any kind of document I write that isn’t email or plain-text notes. I can imagine doing plain text documents with a LaTeX-Pollen nexus might be fairly straightforward, but for things involving diagrams, multiple columns, tables etc., I’m not sure what a sufficiently productive path would be. [1]: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/1023 On October 5, 2017 at 2:24:41 PM, Matthew Butterick ([email protected]) wrote: I know that more than a few Pollen users (Pollenizers?) use it as a front end to LaTeX. I don't use LaTeX in any deep way so I've not really considered the Pollen–LaTeX interaction deeply. OTOH it seems like: 1) There is a small set of recurring problems that arise with LaTeX, that could maybe have common solutions. 2) if Pollen had better LaTeX support, I'm sure it would bring more mildly dissatisfied LaTeX users* across to Pollen [* in other words, all of them] The question, which I can't really answer, is what form this should take. >From my dumb-person's understanding of LaTeX it would probably mean a set of independent components: + a `pollen/latex` dialect that converts LaTeX into X-expressions? + a `pollen/template/latex` module that provides convenience functions for converting X-expressions to LaTeX? + Obviously, Pollen/Racket would automatically add a lot of programmability to LaTeX (no one seems to dispute that while LaTeX is programmable, it should never actually be programmed). + As I show in the fourth tutorial, it's already possible to use the project server to generate LaTeX PDF previews. [1] + Though I've been reluctant to put self-contained templates into Pollen, I also recognize that a huge number of LaTeX users just rely on those six default templates that it's had since 1979 or whatever. So it would make sense to make it easy to use those templates in Pollen (though maybe that's better put into a separate add-on library, so that my philosophical purity is preserved.** [** No. The real reason I've avoided putting readymade templates in Pollen is because I don't want to attract people who really want a turnkey system like Squarespace or WordPress.] + What else? And is it worth doing? [1] http://docs.racket-lang.org/pollen/fourth-tutorial.html#%28part._.Adding_support_for_.P.D.F_output%29 <http://docs.racket-lang.org/pollen/fourth-tutorial.html#(part._.Adding_support_for_.P.D.F_output)> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pollen" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pollen" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
