From: tsd@tsdye.com (Thomas S. Dye)
To: Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu>
Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org, Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>
Subject: Re: [OT] Don't use BibTeX!
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 16:58:55 -1000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m261mlhmkw.fsf@tsdye.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <87txa5j4tp.fsf@berkeley.edu> (Richard Lawrence's message of "Sun, 06 Apr 2014 18:39:30 -0700")
Hi Richard,
If you're just starting out, I encourage you to use biblatex. It will
take a few minutes to make the switch and then you won't have to think
about it. A biblatex site you find googling should tell you what you
need to know.
There are several differences, but a big one is that biblatex supports a
much more informative database and so can handle almost any
bibliographic situation.
For those of us with large legacy bibtex databases, the database
differences are a real issue, but for someone just getting started this
isn't such a consideration.
Biblatex is the wave of the future in the LaTeX world.
hth,
Tom
Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu> writes:
> Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> writes:
>
>> Dnia 2014-04-05, o godz. 09:46:39
>> Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu> napisał(a):
>>
>>> I have sometimes run into problems (mostly with BibTeX) when the
>>
>> Sorry for being off-topic, but I can't resist: *please* *don't* *use*
>> *BibTeX*. On the scale of "tools that solve problems" vs. "tools that
>> create problems" (cf. http://xkcd.com/1343/ ;)), it is located on the
>> far right.
>
> Now now, the first sentence on http://www.bibtex.org/Using/ says that to
> use Bibtex, "Just create a plain text file and apply what has been
> explained in section BibTeX File Format."! It doesn't say anything
> about how to use the manual. ;)
>
>> (For instance, to be able to customize its bibliography style, you
>> could (a) give up, (b) use some user-friendly (or not) front-end,
>> having less power than BibTeX itself (obviously!), or (c) learn
>> BibTeX's own, very peculiar, stack-based ad-hoc language grown to
>> describe bibliography styles. Not good. Also, if you're unlucky and
>> you write in some non-English language, well, you're unlucky with
>> BibTeX, especially if e.g. your name starts with a non-Latin letter.
>> Etc.)
>
> I mostly use bibtex because that's what I learned, and none of these
> issues apply to me at this (early) stage in my career. I have no need
> for customizing my bibliography style. I suppose this will matter more
> to me when I start sending things out for publication, but at this point
> I'm still just trying to write the damn dissertation...
>
>> Use biblatex instead. It's more modern, it's being supported, it
>> knowns that there exist things like UTF-8 and non-English languages,
>> it supports more citation styles etc.
>
> I have heard this, but haven't investigated biblatex because I haven't
> yet really felt the need.
>
> I keep my reading list and notes in Org, then export them to a .bib file
> using org-bibtex. Does biblatex support .bib files? If not, what would
> be required to support a biblatex-based workflow in Org?
>
> Thanks for keeping me honest!
>
> Best,
> Richard
>
>
>
--
Thomas S. Dye
http://www.tsdye.com
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2014-04-07 3:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2014-04-05 4:59 Images not showing up in PDF output Mark S.
2014-04-05 9:55 ` Eric S Fraga
2014-04-05 16:46 ` Richard Lawrence
2014-04-05 19:33 ` [OT] Don't use BibTeX! (was: Images not showing up in PDF output) Marcin Borkowski
2014-04-07 1:39 ` [OT] Don't use BibTeX! Richard Lawrence
2014-04-07 2:58 ` Thomas S. Dye [this message]
2014-04-07 3:50 ` Biblatex and Org [was: [OT] Don't use BibTeX!] Richard Lawrence
2014-04-07 8:34 ` Thomas S. Dye
2014-04-07 15:12 ` Biblatex and Org Richard Lawrence
2014-04-06 18:14 ` Images not showing up in PDF output Mark S.
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