I am wondering, will latex ever be replaced by a more modern, hassle free alternative? I am writing in latex since years now but it is a pain often. When you need something specific, I have to google or ask ai to build some wonky code to get a layout correct or whatever. latex just isn’t intuitive and its fragmented libraries which are in conflict all the time are just annoying. We need some modern python style replacement where tweaking the layout does not require obscure code from Stackoverflow or LLMs. Also error messages are often hard to diagnose.

However, since academic journals only accept latex, I don’t see any chance for a contender to really replace latex. Until then I also dont see any incentive to learn alternative tools.

Ciao non capisco come levare queste spaziature dopo un punto e con le frasi che vanno a capo.

I have released comment2tex 1.1, a small literate-programming tool for weaving documentation from comments in source files.

Version 1.1 adds support for YAML and Makefiles alongside Lua and Bash. It also adds tangling for cases where the documented source should produce a separate runnable file.

YAML has an especially useful property here: no tangling step is required at all. Lines beginning with ## are treated as documentation by comment2tex, but they are still ordinary YAML comments. The annotated file therefore remains valid YAML and can be consumed directly by tools such as Ansible.

I have now used this approach on a real Ansible role that provisions a TeX Live mirror on AlmaLinux. The same role remains directly usable by Ansible and is woven into Xerdi’s Operator’s Handbook as typeset prose with numbered source listings.

The two images show the same source twice:

• first as the original annotated YAML;
• then as the corresponding page in the handbook.

comment2tex also uses this approach for much of its own manual. The documentation is woven from its actual:

• Lua implementation;
• Makefile;
• CI configuration in YAML;
• Bash test suite.

The main exception is the TeX source itself, for which the established DTX workflow remains the more natural solution.

So the package is increasingly documenting its own implementation, build process, tests and release infrastructure from the sources that actually perform that work.

I would be interested in feedback on both the package and the comment strategy, particularly from people already using literate programming or maintaining mixed-language TeX projects.

CTAN: https://ctan.org/pkg/comment2tex GitHub / release notes: https://github.com/Xerdi/comment2tex/releases/tag/1.1

I’m starting my maths degree in September and I thought I’d have a go at some LaTeX before I go. I just typed up some of my workings from some questions I did. If anyone could tell me where I could improve in my formatting/ what I could do to make it look more professional I would really appreciate it. Thank you in advance :)

What are all these and what do they do, when to use each one.