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While you're editing code (which is most of the time), aren't you still reading and working with the non-typeset version?

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Well, you're editing the Latex version of the literate program. But since my development "style" is to make small changes, rebuild, test, and re-create the code and PDF, my "thinking" isn't focused on the "non-typeset" version.

Pick up a physics textbook. Copy down all of the equations. Throw away the textbook and learn physics only using the equations. That's what programmers do. They write down the "equations" but fail to explain the ideas.

Equations, like programs, are really just an "iconic form" of an idea. The idea, however, lives in the surrounding text.

My point is: what I believe the author meant when he wrote that a typeset document 'is dead', is that you're not actually editing the typeset document. You're editing the code, which is then rendered - maybe instantly and continuously, but still.

You're not __directly__ editing the "nicer" representation.

You also aren't directly editing the observable runtime behavior of the system, yet programmers seem to be able to handle that jump regularly.

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