Comment by juriansluiman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by juriansluiman | Hacker News Reader

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From the PDF manual file[0] it is at glance almost similar to Latex.

  \begin[papersize=a4]{document}
  \chapter{Hi there}
  Hello world

  \include[src=chapter2]
  \end{document}

Unfortunately, the power of Latex for maths display and vectorized graphs are completely absent. It also states image handling is still rudimentarily available (only PNG files, for example). I also am not really impressed by the type setting from the PDF, but this might be due to its focus on the engine and not the aesthetics of the typesetting (which will hopefully addressed soon to convince Tex users!).

Personally I don't "program" in Tex, I only write. The benefits with regard to (La)Tex therefore seems minor to me. However, if you program in Tex (like, designing templates perhaps?) I can understand you don't want to fool around with an ancient system like Tex and SILE can be an excellent alternative. The source is on Github [1], so everyone can contribute!

[0] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/simoncozens/sile/master/do... [1] https://github.com/simoncozens/sile

PS. Because the author writes SILE, not sile or Sile; is SILE an acronym?

Two clarifications: Image handling is rudimentary at present but I'm switching to different PDF engine (see http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/166261/would-it-make-... and http://www.sile-typesetter.org/2014/09/24/Whats-happening-in...) which will vastly improve image support.

Yes, SILE is an acronym but to be perfectly honest I can't remember what for. I promise it was good. "Simon's Improved Layout Engine" is a backronym.

But if TeX does what you want, please use TeX. I don't see much point in "convincing" people who are happily using a piece of software which fits their needs to switch to something else which may not. Do whatever works. TeX has CTAN which is the product of many years of work, and it'll be a long time before SILE can even "compete" on level terms with that. But I'm not interested in competing; I'm interested in being the best in a particular niche. If that happens to be useful for others, then great.

> Yes, SILE is an acronym but to be perfectly honest I can't remember what for.

Would I be wrong to bet at substantial odds that the SIL portion of it, at least, was for http://www.sil.org/ ?

Talking of the syntax, I am a bit disappointed that it is similar to TeX's. In my opinion, TeX's style syntax is one of the most visible features that haven't stood the test of time (in comparison to, say, an XML-like syntax).

(Of course, in the case of (La)TeX it is made worse by the ridiculously unhelpful messages in case of syntax errors.)

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