Re: Depreciating TeX-style LaTeX fragments (was: Org Syntax Specification)

[Timothy <tecosaur@gmail.com>]

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Hi Sebastien,

Thanks for your comments, and your thoughts on the proposed deprecation.

It’s worth explicitly considering why we wouldn’t want to steer people away from
the TeX-syntax LaTeX fragments, so I am glad you have brought up some reasons.
I do not find myself agreeing with them however, and will endeavour to explain
why below.

⁃ It is easier to use
  • Hmm. Not sure about this. Keystroke wise we’re comparing `$$' to `\('. The
    latter can be completed by smartparens, but since single dollars are
    reasonable Org content the former can’t. At this point the only argument is
    muscle memory, and if you’re a LaTeX user (a good target audience for LaTeX
    fragments I think), I’d expect LaTeX-style `\(' to be more familiar.
⁃ Easier to read
  • I had a quick look at a document to gauge this for myself, and if anything I
    found the opposite (see <https://0x0.st/o-32.png>). This may be influenced by
    a minor fontification tweak I made to LaTeX style input though.
⁃ more commonly used (and known) in tex documents (a quick web search for sample
  tex documents confirms the latter).
⁃ Removing this syntax would make org slightly harder to pick up, with respect
  to writing scientific documents.
  • With respect to writing scientific documents, I think we can reasonably
    expect people to be familiar with `\(', particularly given the points I raise
    below.

These points seem to have a common thread in wanting to have Org be like LaTeX.
I find this sensible, but I think 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.

To quote from David Carlisle (one of the main members of the LaTeX3 team) on [tex.stackexchange]:
> $$ is TeX primitive syntax, which, as others have commented is hard to
> redefine (in classic TeX there is no command name which triggers entering or
> leaving display math).
> LaTeX doesn’t officially support $$. The most noticeable failure if you use
> the syntax is that the fleqn option will no longer affect the display of the
> mathematics, it will remain centered rather than being set flush left.

Another member of the LaTeX3 team, Joseph Wright, has made even stronger
comments about $-syntax on [tex.stackexchange]:
> I’d note with my ’LaTeX3’ hat on that there is a strong chance we’ll favour `\(
> ... \)' to the point of not supporting `$...$' for LaTeX3. So in the long term it
> might be best to get used to `\(...\)'.

In further comments Joseph goes on to say that it is likely that $-syntax will
/not/ be dropped outright, but that $$ likely will be. Among other
things the $-syntax produces worse error reporting and spacing.

So, to sum up LaTeX currently prefers `\(...\)' / `\[...\]' over `$' / `$$', and it
looks like people will be pushed more strongly in this direction in future.

More than anything else, I think this demonstrates why aside from annoyances
with the parsing, purely from a user perspective, it would make sense to favour
LaTeX-syntax LaTeX fragments.

All the best,
Timothy


[tex.stackexchange] <https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/503/why-is-preferable-to>

[tex.stackexchange] <https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/510/are-and-preferable-to-dollar-signs-for-math-mode?noredirect=1&lq=1#comment2607_513>

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