Post #3267197
2026-06-08 00:51 UTC
Replies (1)
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@arclight@oldbytes.space 2026-06-08 13:07
@jrdepriest@infosec.exchange @whbboyd@infosec.exchange @ifixcoinops@retro.social For small stuff I'm going the Markdown -> Pandoc -> [whatever] route. For anything complex and/or that I care about, it gets built in LaTeX because I have brain problems. After 4 years here I still have no idea how our multiple Confluence sites are organized or how they are supposed to be used. LaTeX is the only way I can include subdocuments and instantly update hundreds of images without needing to point and click each one; these are critical for building the incredibly tedious and marginally useful software QA docs we need that demonstrate our engineering analysis codes aren't complete unjustifiable crap. Unlike Word which regularly eats its own tail then throws up all over the nice sofa. LaTeX takes the place of WordPerfect allowing you to see what's going on in all its deranged glory, leaving you with the sanity of a senior librarian at Miskatonic University. But at least your documents don't have stray tentacles erupting from every crevice tearing at the bounds of space and time like Word. Making websites was interesting in 1995, became a vicious fight with broke-ass Javascript in 1997, and was completely miserable by 1998 when every potatohead Stanford MBA wanted a dungeon full of wizards to turn Photoshop comps into fast-loading dynamic scalable applications yesterday so they could achieve humanity's dream of having toothpaste delivered overnight to your home. CSS was an undelivered promise that eventually turned into systemd for web chrome and nothing anywhere was fun anymore.