Re: Depreciating TeX-style LaTeX fragments

[Martin Steffen]

Hi

to add my two cents. I am latex user of _many_ years (as user of emacs +
org), and I use it often for math-loaded texts.

I do use $ (I actually did not even know that \( \) is (supposed to be)
the new way  until I saw it generated by org.

As for $$ (or \[), I basically don't use it. I use
begin/end{displaymath}.

I don't care that it's a lot to type in, as I use an editor, that
assists me (said emacs ;-) resp. auc-tex mode).

I like the keybindings for environments there (and with the usual prefix
C-u C-x C-e, one can for instance turn a display-math into an equation,
should one decide later).

$$ I never used. The display-math simply looks nicer and is better
supported by auc-tex in that it uses standard indentation for
environments. For me it's likewise important that the text is properly
indented, and highlighted, so I can read the source file with easy,
while working on it.

Also \[ \] does proper indentation, but as said, I got used to C-x C-e
and that produces for me displaymath (probably it can be customized, but
I am happy with it as is).


Martin












>>>>> "Sébastien" == Sébastien Miquel <sebastien.miquel@posteo.eu> writes:

    Sébastien> Hi,

    Sébastien> With respect to readability, I only mean to point out
    Sébastien> that the $…$ syntax is one less character, and that the
    Sébastien> \(\) characters are quite overloaded.

    >> this is a good opportunity to point out that $/$$ are very much
    >> second class citizens in LaTeX now, no matter what you may see in
    >> old documents.


    Sébastien> The posts that you quote are 10 years old. As per [0]
    Sébastien> (2020), there will be no LaTeX3. Nor is it only old
    Sébastien> documents that use the $…$ syntax : looking for learning
    Sébastien> ressources (see [1]), everything that I find uses
    Sébastien> it. That includes The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX
    Sébastien> [2] (2021) and
    Sébastien> https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Mathematics.

    Sébastien> Although I have no evidence of this, my expectation is
    Sébastien> that the majority of tex users use the $…$ syntax (it is
    Sébastien> in fact widely used outside of tex: in most markdown
    Sébastien> flavors and texmacs for example). I also expect that a
    Sébastien> significant proportion of tex users are not aware of the
    Sébastien> \(…\) syntax. I think here of users that are less tech
    Sébastien> literate than most of this mailing list.

    Sébastien> Regards,

    Sébastien> [0]:
    Sébastien> 
https://www.latex-project.org/publications/2020-FMi-TUB-tb128mitt-quovadis.pdf
    Sébastien> [1]:
    Sébastien> 
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/11/what-are-good-learning-resources-for-a-latex-beginner
    Sébastien> [2]:
    Sébastien> https://ctan.tetaneutral.net/info/lshort/english/lshort.pdf

    Sébastien> -- Sébastien Miquel