6 ms·

> Most people in Julia's target audience know latex already Is Julia's target audience really that small? Either that or you'd be surprised how many people don

by pmeira 6y ago

> Most people in Julia's target audience know latex already Is Julia's target audience really that small? Either that or you'd be surprised how many people don't use LaTeX but do write scientific code and papers.

oxinabox 6y ago
Even if you don't use Latex, all the equation editors in e.g. word etc use more or less the same latex symbol names Julia does (I remember typing things in by name in MS-Word 2007 long before I started latex). Even if they don't use more latex than that. And if the people don't use enough symbols in their papers to memorise the type-able names, they probably don't want to use them in their code in the first place.
threatofrain 6y ago
IMO the people whose scientific papers are equation-heavy will have someone else do the editing, or the publisher will have a template. Latex could use a disruption, but who will do it...?
centimeter 6y ago
All of my university colleagues (physics dept) knew how to use latex.
- orbifold 6y ago
  Or they have a secretary that does ;)
- pmeira 6y ago
  For physics, I think that's true. For other fields in general, it probably varies a lot (I'd love to see some numbers). We live in bubbles but we should try to remember that our bubbles don't represent the whole world.
sundarurfriend 6y ago
I don't know Latex and find it difficult to learn, but have found that it's almost trivial to remember the Latex names for these symbols, especially since it's often a small subset of these that you use, depending on your field. They've been pretty quick to get into my muscle memory. Just like with natural languages unrelated to yours, it's the grammar that really does your head in, needing just the vocabulary is Easy mode.
ogogmad 6y ago
What else do people use to write scientific papers? A word processor?
- huijzer 6y ago
  There exist journals who accept only Word documents (and then translate it to LaTeX after the editor accepts the paper).
quantified 6y ago
Writing in the non-Julia world, my standard keyboard input is set to Unicode character interpretation so I can enter math symbols (mostly predicate logic and Z notation). I can believe it. Just enough to translate the algorithm of interest is enough for it to make sense.

by pmeira 6y ago

oxinabox 6y ago

Even if you don't use Latex, all the equation editors in e.g. word etc use more or less the same latex symbol names Julia does (I remember typing things in by name in MS-Word 2007 long before I started latex). Even if they don't use more latex than that. And if the people don't use enough symbols in their papers to memorise the type-able names, they probably don't want to use them in their code in the first place.

threatofrain 6y ago

IMO the people whose scientific papers are equation-heavy will have someone else do the editing, or the publisher will have a template. Latex could use a disruption, but who will do it...?

centimeter 6y ago

All of my university colleagues (physics dept) knew how to use latex.

orbifold 6y ago
Or they have a secretary that does ;)
pmeira 6y ago
For physics, I think that's true. For other fields in general, it probably varies a lot (I'd love to see some numbers). We live in bubbles but we should try to remember that our bubbles don't represent the whole world.

sundarurfriend 6y ago

I don't know Latex and find it difficult to learn, but have found that it's almost trivial to remember the Latex names for these symbols, especially since it's often a small subset of these that you use, depending on your field. They've been pretty quick to get into my muscle memory. Just like with natural languages unrelated to yours, it's the grammar that really does your head in, needing just the vocabulary is Easy mode.

ogogmad 6y ago

What else do people use to write scientific papers? A word processor?

huijzer 6y ago
There exist journals who accept only Word documents (and then translate it to LaTeX after the editor accepts the paper).

quantified 6y ago

Writing in the non-Julia world, my standard keyboard input is set to Unicode character interpretation so I can enter math symbols (mostly predicate logic and Z notation). I can believe it. Just enough to translate the algorithm of interest is enough for it to make sense.