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List:       lyx-users
Subject:    Re: Help for paper about LaTeX/LyX and the meaning of life
From:       Piero Faustini <pierofaustini () hotmail ! com>
Date:       2009-03-24 16:06:22
Message-ID: loom.20090324T151443-262 () post ! gmane ! org
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I can't thank you all enough for your time and interest. Just a bunch of 
answers to single answers, and a thought, but I think it can interest all of 
you:

@Steve: wise LyX usage and great propaganda, I can use some of your arguments, 
thanks... but I think I'll keep the WYSIWYM in the title!

@Stefano: Ciao Stefano, I'm pleased to know a fellow humanists and italian 
involved in LyX. I find very interesting what you told about LyX/LaTeX and the 
academia, although I'm not quite convniced about the needs of "future 
portability", as I think it is a problem of the past. And about "On the other 
hand", I read it as "THUMB DOWN DOWN DOWN". Negative sides are things I already 
thought but almost never read. But let me answer Charles - un "attimino".

@Charles: Very interesting about french publishers, I'm going to quote this. 
But this is subtly linked with a thing Stefano said.

I'm talking about .... LyX philosophy (please do not run away!).

What SHOULD LyX be (and is going right now, although we didn't realize it)????

LyX should be the ultimate tool for linking the writer to the reader. LyX 
should provide two different FORMS: one for the reader (and it's LaTeX - or 
whatever - based) and one for the writer. So if Steve don't like term WYSIWYM, 
I'm sorry ;) but I do. LyX must give a REPRESENTATION of what I mean. Of course 
paper is a representation of the meaning (or content), but it's only created to 
communicate it, not to create/edit it. This is and should be the only 
difference.

Purist LaTeXians don't like LyX. I don't like LaTeX code. LaTeX code is a way 
for the computer to represent content. Computer, though, like it. I don't. I 
like LyX representation which is DESIGNED for me. Thorugh Latex, computer can 
represent in a commonly shared format (paper, paragraphs, notes etc.) what I 
mean.

At the opposite side, LyX should abstract from any paper-like layout style. It 
should use more colours or shades. It should be used directly as a notepad, if 
I want. It should it should. Most importnat it should be different from BOTH 
Word and a LaTeX editor, and SHOULD NEVER be a compromise between them, as 
Stefano described it. It should never be a WYSIWYG editor for LaTeX. This would 
be the worst mistake. Let LaTeX do the job of printing a page. Just represent 
LaTeX things in a simple, human-intuitive way.

In a few words: LyX should be an "idea editor", although this kind of ideas 
(books, letters...) are already thought to be printed on paper or in any case 
to be "read". It should focus on represent in a CLEAR way this idea.

If it accomplishes this, the link between the writer and the reader could be 
with the aid of LaTeX (let bad publishers disappear), THE task of LyX.

To LyX developers: please do not create a MS LaTeX please please! I (we?) don't 
want WYSIWYG: I want powerful, complete, effective WYSIWYM.

Thanks and sorry for this compendium.

Piero

P.S. the human-user-proof word next to the "post this article" button under the 
GMANE "compose message" box in which I'm writing this, reads "representing"... 
is the LyX spirit sending us his benevolent sign? ...ah, nevermind.

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