[OS X TeX] Anyone try "Madhat Design"

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Jun 11, 2024, at 12:40 PM, Richard Koch <koch at uoregon.edu> wrote:
> 
> Folks,
> 
> Several days ago, William Adams send the following short note.
> 
> 
>> On Jun 10, 2024, at 7:03 AM, William F. Adams via MacOSX-TeX <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> Looks kind of interesting:
>> 
>> https://madhat.design/
>> 
>> William
> 
> 
> 
> I ignored this note for several days before curiosity got the better of me.
> Thanks, William, for the pointer; extremely interesting. 
> 
> The link leads to a page where two items are provided for free. The first is
> a quite readable book, which praises TeX and LaTeX but argues that
> the enormous advances of computing power since 1970 make possible
> a new paradigm for software to write documents with
> mathematical content.
> 
> The second free item is a program, MadHat, which takes a stab at
> implementing that new paradigm.
> 
> Working with TeX and LaTeX has been a great joy for all of us, in the past 
> and in the future. It is not treason to also admire new typesetting ideas!
> 
> Dick Koch

Howdy,

I have been looking at the MadHat Book after Wiiliam suggested it. My first impressions are not particularly positive. Several of the points made for giving up LaTeX (and friends) are being worked upon although I'd guess they will never just be automatic.

As far as instant compile is concerned TeXtures had that a long time ago (although the definition of instant was stretched quite a bit with the processors of that era) and I never felt the need for it then and even less now. Using pdflatexmk I can fully typeset a 500 page book (including bibliography and index and cross references) in fairly short order and, quite frankly, the time it takes to do that is welcome and gives me a chance to think about what I'm doing.

Finally, while I know that MadHat is a work in progress, the quality of the MadHat Book's typesetting is pretty bad. It looks like a Word document with the use of ragged right. I haven't really gotten into the book very deeply so I'll keep reading.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
herbs2 at mac.com