Re: [O] Leslie Lamport has a foot in the 21st century

[Hubert Chathi]

On Sat, 8 Oct 2016 10:50:09 -0500, Grant Rettke <address@hidden> said:

> On Sat, Oct 8, 2016 at 3:40 AM, Thierry Banel <address@hidden> wrote:
>> But... Is Leslie killing LaTex?

> No. LaTeX is a markup/programming-language and it /could/ be compiled
> directly to whatever new ideal format arises, too.

It's not a matter of compiling to the right file format, but rather
whether LaTeX is the right tool for the type of document structure that
Lamport is proposing.  His system requires people to be able to expand
and collapse things, which TeX is unable to handle.  You might be able
to fake it in TeX by using hyperlinks, but that might drive the PDF/dead
tree readers crazy once they get a couple of levels deep in your proof,
having to keep track of all the links that they had to follow.  Not to
mention, it would probably require a lot of TeX black magic to
implement.  It would require adding some new environments and/or
commands to LaTeX, which the current LaTeX-to-HTML converters wouldn't
be able to handle -- you'd need to implement those bits.  So given that
you'd need to create a bunch of new infrastructure, and TeX would
basically just be dead weight, the question is: is it worth still using
LaTeX, or is it better to start with something else entirely that's
better suited to handle hierarchical proofs?

BTW, Lamport has been talking about hierarchical proofs since the early
90's
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/lamport-how-to-write.pdf

BTW, Grant, if you're interested in different types of scientific
communication, you may be interested in Bret Victor's work, e.g.
http://worrydream.com/#!/ScientificCommunicationAsSequentialArt

-- 
Hubert Chathi - Email: address@hidden - https://www.uhoreg.ca/
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