On Thu, Mar 07, 2002 at 01:44:32PM -0400, Lex Spoon wrote:
> 
> > Well, personally I like the way I can programmatically design a document.
> > I like the fact that I can build a simple 'meta structure' and include
> > LaTeX files in that, in whatever ordering I like.  The fact that all
> > the sectional/chapter numbering and whatnot is automatically regenerated
> > is a real plus.  It makes a sort of fiendish sense that I can build
> > my documents with a simple Makefile. 
> 
> I do, too, but wouldn't it be nice to use the Smalltalk language instead
> of TeX?  Almost every little language blows, and LaTeX is no exception. 
> It's in fact an exemplar.
> 

Heh...absolutely.  I'd prefer to do it in Smalltalk, in fact.  LaTeX can
be quite tempermental.  (Nowadays I'm finding I'd rather do everything
in Smalltalk if I could, but that's another story)

I wonder...constructing a document in a class browser?  Assembling it
like an MVC or Morphic application?  That would put a whole new twist
on things!


> 
> 
> > 
> > The ability to transform LaTeX into other "final" output formats is a
> > great boon, but it's also quite a pain...I like to have a neutral
> > document that can be PDF or HTML in it's final form, but pdflatex and
> > latex2html don't work together very well.
> 
> Unlike the other poster, I don't thisk LaTeX is especially well
> transformable.   If you want to support text and HTML in addition to PS
> and PDF, you should use an SGML system like DocBook.  You will also have
> to live with output that doesn't look as pretty.
> 
> 
> -Lex
> 

That's true...so far I've gotten by just using latex2html...it does support
html and PDF all by itself..it just doesn't do PDF as nicely as the pdflatex
package.