Slow? I don't know about that, but compared to what? Even in word it does need some time to reach the "Save as PDF" menu, right?
>> "Inconsistent" > I'm not sure what tinco meant by this, but it does in fact return the same results for the same file across multiple runs.
Well, there is some truth about this. There is an odd naming scheme if you look at stuff like "enumerate", "itemize" and "description" - beginners get confused by this as they assume it would be called "describe". The same goes for most of the packages. This is somehow historical, but I think it also makes it unnecessary hard to figure out LaTex for beginners, right?
Also the reason why LaTex needs several runs to finally create the full document. Nowadays you would do this differently I guess as there is simply no need to start the program twice if the application would be smart enough to call sub-programs (like biblatex) by itself on the fly. It would still run the same routine several times, but users wouldn't see it and it would be one command for them to build the document. That's another point beginners tend to go crazy about :)
Having said that, I should add that I'm using LaTex (and XeLaTex, etc.) daily and there isn't a single program matching the power and beauty of it - I even design covers for my publications with it. But I'm able to use vim and emacs, right? 90% of the people are bloody beginners and it would be a shame to hide the beauty of a LaTex document from them.
>> "It's syntax is ugly."
Yeah, well...ugly is a bad term to discuss about. I like it and I think the syntax is way cleaner than reStructured text :D
what is unclean about rST in your opinion?
It is slow. On my PhD thesis, it took more than one minute at some point, on an SSD. Not very convenient if you are tweaking figures and equations, and want to preview a change quickly.
However, I will agree that using it to address slowness of a build process is just a hack.
Syntax is important, remember he is comparing it to Markdown, not C++. C++ is certainly ugly and should not be used as the basis for any comparison, certainly not for a word processor.
I think he is just pointing out that general theme amongst these tools. They work for the people using them well enough, so they stay that way forever. It isn't that features aren't added or that they stagnate, it is just that thinking outside of the box is impossible.
> "LateX is slow, inconsistent and needs to be ran multiple times to give a correct result"
It is not slow, it runs in under a second on most documents I have authored.
> "Inconsistent"
I'm not sure what tinco meant by this, but it does in fact return the same results for the same file across multiple runs.
> "Needs to be run multiple times to give the correct result"
This is true for things like references, etc. However, this proves to be a non-issue in practice as you are recompiling so often to view changes that references are always up to date.
> "It's syntax is ugly."
I don't see how learning LaTeX is different from learning any other programming language. I don't think that many C++ gurus would call C++ "ugly". Calling a progamming language "ugly" is often the last argument you see when someone couldn't come up with a decent argument against it.