Re: [OT] Don't use BibTeX!

[Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu>]

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