Always pleased to see Typst mentioned. TeX made a lot of choices that made sense at the time, but TeX macros and C #defines especially when nested and/or not properly bracketed to allow nesting are a mess when things go wrong.
It's cool sure, powerful also... but when anybody has access to both vector-based editor and raster-based editor ... but also tools that incorporate them, e.g. rich text editors ... but also entire toolchain going from compilers to libraries all the way to Web based notebook with their editors and running environment that can then output printable artifacts, I don't think there has to be "the" way. They might be a more popular way within a certain zeitgeist but... does one project has to "replace" another one?
I guess I don't really get the passion some people have for "perfect" rendering. I'm fine with just text, then just readible equations below it, then an OK looking graph. I don't actually care if any of those are pixel perfect. I don't get it.
IMHO in terms of actual knowledge transmission reproducibility and interactivity are way more important. They might not look as good and in fact introduce a TON of complexity but I believe it's better than yet another system that is slightly better looking while being slightly easier, for those people with a specific mindset, to setup and use.
PS: still both Gribouille and Typst are cool projects! Just want to make sure I'm not sounding critical against those efforts.
If you've ever debugged TeX package conflicts because someone wants "that layout, except with those headers and this font", yes the whole stack needs replacing with something that does not hold all its state in global variables and has a sensible scripting language (LuaTeX never really took off).
I cannot tell the future of typst and gribouille, but for:
> I'm fine with just text, then just readible equations below it, then an OK looking graph. I don't actually care if any of those are pixel perfect. I don't get it.
what you describe is fine for a readme or a blog post, but for books, scientific articles, or any long format, having a good layout and typography will totally impact the end result
I agree but to me it seems humanity has a terminal case of being unable to separate content from presentation. I can see it in this thread with clamoring for Typst in READMEs etc. If READMEs need to be anything they need to be plain bloody text. Markdown is the absolute maximum. Having some “header semantics” defined is fine as that’s universal in a document but let’s keep it simple guys, OK?
Information needs to be plain and clear. Presentation can be fancy. Let’s keep these very, very different things separate. AI will thank you as well.
I agree with that, that's why I am starting with plain syntax first in https://zero.practal.com, because that is really where all the information/logic lives. But there will also be a presentation layer on top of that, building on the information layer, so with time, I would expect it also to subsume much latex/typst functionality. The "header semantics" I already copied from Markdown.
Typesetting isn't just for science. I like that it looks good; I enjoy the creative step of experimenting with document design; and Typst is just fun to use.
> It's cool sure, powerful also... but when anybody has access to both vector-based editor and raster-based editor ... but also tools that incorporate them, e.g. rich text editors ... but also entire toolchain going from compilers to libraries all the way to Web based notebook with their editors and running environment that can then output printable artifacts, I don't think there has to be "the" way. They might be a more popular way within a certain zeitgeist but... does one project has to "replace" another one?
cool, why do you think people use tikz? And like generating images programmatically from text is impossibly more powerful than using vector editors.
Markdown and Typst serve different markets - I don't need page layouts and font choices in a pull request, for example. Typst is however a good Markdown++ in that once a collection of markdown files grows to book size, it's easy enough to port.
Typst challenging TeX would be my dream too - there's a lot of math you can port just be leaving off the backslashes. Mind you the kids these days know TeX primarily as "that language in overleaf".
For Latex I agree thats definitely. Markdown I am unsure as Markdown is not meant for creating documents but to just have a little Richt Text Markup in READMEs and other Text files. Typst needs a compile step and altough that one is fast as hell it is still different from Markdown that renders directly from the file without an intermediary.
Right; but markdown has expanded beyond that niche. Lots of projects use markdown for other stuff - like mdbook, or for blogs.
I think markdown is a great format for readme files. But for real documentation, the added features of typst are fantastic. Like, being able to write scripts, have figures and custom styling, populate data from JSON files, plugins, typography, numbered sections, footnotes and all sorts of other stuff. Markdown doesn't even support comments properly!
I want typst for blogging, long form articles and documentation. Markdown is great for small stuff. But it doesn't scale.
Ordinary markdowns have had /everything/ you mention for close to 20 years, except typesetting. Academic papers and books, novels, thousands of ebooks, have been written in single file markdowns for 15 years.
Writing directly in typst is good for small things with intense typesetting like ... wedding invitations, advertisements. But it doesn't scale to serious composition by actual writers.
Writing is not typesetting.
All the forms need for the composition of all civilized text were present in word perfect 5.1, which unlike Word, Latex and Typst, permitted no typsetting during the process of writing. They were all recovered in the writers' markdowns nearly two decades ago.
I'm not sure what you mean. Markdown compared to typst or latex is extremely limited and using it for books or academic papers is very niche. I certainly would (and have for all my previous publications) prefer typst or latex over markdown. I also don't understand your point about not permitting typesetting during writing. Latex and text are the prime examples of separating writing from typesetting.
If they need to do typsetting, as mathematicians in fact do. Mathematics breaks the civilized opposition of content and format, because it involves the invention of symbols on the fly. Reasoning about this is actually quite simple but the typst brigaders have no experience with the history of the topic.
It is universal that the flood of largely automated hackernews typst brigaders cannot make a single post without flatly lying about every other existing instrument. On this site I have never read a single true statement by a typst brigader about latex or markdown, but I have read literally /hundreds/ of lies. If these accounts are real and not bots, the community is fated to die, unfortunately.
I use typst countless times a day, but don't need to lie.
Fascinating Ideas I love hearing opinions on this, it enriches me.
I do belive that atleast simple files like for example READMEs will stay and perhaps are better to stay as Markdown. One advantage that has is that while scripting is cool, It make the document not plain text readable which is a tradeoff one can argue.
The problem with markdown is that it's not extensible and that there is no spec. Essentially all READMEs would be better off using typst, they would make for better READMEs.
I do not think that is the problem with markdown lol. There are lots of problems with markdown, especially vanilla or the more limited versions of it - but really its super power is that it is readable with a regular text editor (or `cat`) and can be rendered without a compilation step.
Markdown is not competing with latex or typst, it is competing with (and has won against) .txt files
Actually basic typst is as readable as markdown, e.g. this is the example from the webapp:
= The Typst Playground
Welcome to the Typst Playground! This is a sandbox where you can experiment with Typst. You can type anywhere in the editor panel on the left. The preview panel to the right will update live.
= Basics <basics>
Typst is a _markup_ language. You use it to express not just the content, but also the structure and formatting of your document. For example, surrounding a word with underscores _emphasizes_ it with italics and starting a line with an equals sign creates a section heading.
Typst has lightweight syntax like this for the most common formatting needs. Among other things, you can use it to:
- *Strongly emphasize* some text
- Refer to @basics
- Typeset math: $a, b in { 1/2, sqrt(4 a b) }$
That's just the surface though! Typst has powerful systems for scripting, styling, introspection, and more. In the realm of a Typst document, there is nothing you can't automate.
There have been theoretically precise published specs for serious markdowns for 15 years. The commonmark convention is a common specification for many including e.g the familiar simple github variant, which emphatically does have a completely perfect specification.
As I said in a previous comment typst especialy with extending via scripting stops being plain text readable. A Markdown file (whatever flavor it may be) is still fundamentaly one vi,nano, Editor, Notepad++ away from being read with all its context included. It is a tradeoff that for READMES I would not want to make.
From past experience (may be different now): Typst supports SVGs that are actually vanilla SVGs. The SVG standard lets you embed a HTML page and CSS as a <foreignObject>, which only renders properly in a browser or something that bundles one (surprise!). This is not the fault of Typst and I think Typst is correct not to go down that route.
Just a heads up if you wonder why draw.io (diagrams.net) SVGs display as black boxes.
Always pleased to see Typst mentioned. TeX made a lot of choices that made sense at the time, but TeX macros and C #defines especially when nested and/or not properly bracketed to allow nesting are a mess when things go wrong.
Why are all the parameters full words except 'labs'? I find it jarring because to me 'lab' is short for laboratory, not label.
He's open to API suggestions, you should open an issue
What’s with the slanted figures until you hover over them?
Typst is the most important open source project of the last 5 years.
I predict a future where markdown and latex are largely replaced by typst. And I couldn't be more excited.
It is such a stepup from markdown and latex. Try it today if you are intrigued.
I'm not sure either matter to be honest.
It's cool sure, powerful also... but when anybody has access to both vector-based editor and raster-based editor ... but also tools that incorporate them, e.g. rich text editors ... but also entire toolchain going from compilers to libraries all the way to Web based notebook with their editors and running environment that can then output printable artifacts, I don't think there has to be "the" way. They might be a more popular way within a certain zeitgeist but... does one project has to "replace" another one?
I guess I don't really get the passion some people have for "perfect" rendering. I'm fine with just text, then just readible equations below it, then an OK looking graph. I don't actually care if any of those are pixel perfect. I don't get it.
IMHO in terms of actual knowledge transmission reproducibility and interactivity are way more important. They might not look as good and in fact introduce a TON of complexity but I believe it's better than yet another system that is slightly better looking while being slightly easier, for those people with a specific mindset, to setup and use.
PS: still both Gribouille and Typst are cool projects! Just want to make sure I'm not sounding critical against those efforts.
If you've ever debugged TeX package conflicts because someone wants "that layout, except with those headers and this font", yes the whole stack needs replacing with something that does not hold all its state in global variables and has a sensible scripting language (LuaTeX never really took off).
I cannot tell the future of typst and gribouille, but for:
> I'm fine with just text, then just readible equations below it, then an OK looking graph. I don't actually care if any of those are pixel perfect. I don't get it.
what you describe is fine for a readme or a blog post, but for books, scientific articles, or any long format, having a good layout and typography will totally impact the end result
I agree but to me it seems humanity has a terminal case of being unable to separate content from presentation. I can see it in this thread with clamoring for Typst in READMEs etc. If READMEs need to be anything they need to be plain bloody text. Markdown is the absolute maximum. Having some “header semantics” defined is fine as that’s universal in a document but let’s keep it simple guys, OK?
Information needs to be plain and clear. Presentation can be fancy. Let’s keep these very, very different things separate. AI will thank you as well.
I agree with that, that's why I am starting with plain syntax first in https://zero.practal.com, because that is really where all the information/logic lives. But there will also be a presentation layer on top of that, building on the information layer, so with time, I would expect it also to subsume much latex/typst functionality. The "header semantics" I already copied from Markdown.
My primary use for Typst is pretty agendas for my Toastmasters club. https://typst.app/project/rmyyeU17y51rl6ISSqGji9
Typesetting isn't just for science. I like that it looks good; I enjoy the creative step of experimenting with document design; and Typst is just fun to use.
> It's cool sure, powerful also... but when anybody has access to both vector-based editor and raster-based editor ... but also tools that incorporate them, e.g. rich text editors ... but also entire toolchain going from compilers to libraries all the way to Web based notebook with their editors and running environment that can then output printable artifacts, I don't think there has to be "the" way. They might be a more popular way within a certain zeitgeist but... does one project has to "replace" another one?
cool, why do you think people use tikz? And like generating images programmatically from text is impossibly more powerful than using vector editors.
Markdown and Typst serve different markets - I don't need page layouts and font choices in a pull request, for example. Typst is however a good Markdown++ in that once a collection of markdown files grows to book size, it's easy enough to port.
Typst challenging TeX would be my dream too - there's a lot of math you can port just be leaving off the backslashes. Mind you the kids these days know TeX primarily as "that language in overleaf".
For Latex I agree thats definitely. Markdown I am unsure as Markdown is not meant for creating documents but to just have a little Richt Text Markup in READMEs and other Text files. Typst needs a compile step and altough that one is fast as hell it is still different from Markdown that renders directly from the file without an intermediary.
Right; but markdown has expanded beyond that niche. Lots of projects use markdown for other stuff - like mdbook, or for blogs.
I think markdown is a great format for readme files. But for real documentation, the added features of typst are fantastic. Like, being able to write scripts, have figures and custom styling, populate data from JSON files, plugins, typography, numbered sections, footnotes and all sorts of other stuff. Markdown doesn't even support comments properly!
I want typst for blogging, long form articles and documentation. Markdown is great for small stuff. But it doesn't scale.
Ordinary markdowns have had /everything/ you mention for close to 20 years, except typesetting. Academic papers and books, novels, thousands of ebooks, have been written in single file markdowns for 15 years.
Writing directly in typst is good for small things with intense typesetting like ... wedding invitations, advertisements. But it doesn't scale to serious composition by actual writers.
Writing is not typesetting.
All the forms need for the composition of all civilized text were present in word perfect 5.1, which unlike Word, Latex and Typst, permitted no typsetting during the process of writing. They were all recovered in the writers' markdowns nearly two decades ago.
I'm not sure what you mean. Markdown compared to typst or latex is extremely limited and using it for books or academic papers is very niche. I certainly would (and have for all my previous publications) prefer typst or latex over markdown. I also don't understand your point about not permitting typesetting during writing. Latex and text are the prime examples of separating writing from typesetting.
So LaTeX also doesn't scale to serious composition by actual writers?
If they need to do typsetting, as mathematicians in fact do. Mathematics breaks the civilized opposition of content and format, because it involves the invention of symbols on the fly. Reasoning about this is actually quite simple but the typst brigaders have no experience with the history of the topic.
It is universal that the flood of largely automated hackernews typst brigaders cannot make a single post without flatly lying about every other existing instrument. On this site I have never read a single true statement by a typst brigader about latex or markdown, but I have read literally /hundreds/ of lies. If these accounts are real and not bots, the community is fated to die, unfortunately.
I use typst countless times a day, but don't need to lie.
What's the state for generating websites from Typst?
Fascinating Ideas I love hearing opinions on this, it enriches me.
I do belive that atleast simple files like for example READMEs will stay and perhaps are better to stay as Markdown. One advantage that has is that while scripting is cool, It make the document not plain text readable which is a tradeoff one can argue.
The problem with markdown is that it's not extensible and that there is no spec. Essentially all READMEs would be better off using typst, they would make for better READMEs.
I do not think that is the problem with markdown lol. There are lots of problems with markdown, especially vanilla or the more limited versions of it - but really its super power is that it is readable with a regular text editor (or `cat`) and can be rendered without a compilation step.
Markdown is not competing with latex or typst, it is competing with (and has won against) .txt files
Actually basic typst is as readable as markdown, e.g. this is the example from the webapp:
There have been theoretically precise published specs for serious markdowns for 15 years. The commonmark convention is a common specification for many including e.g the familiar simple github variant, which emphatically does have a completely perfect specification.
As I said in a previous comment typst especialy with extending via scripting stops being plain text readable. A Markdown file (whatever flavor it may be) is still fundamentaly one vi,nano, Editor, Notepad++ away from being read with all its context included. It is a tradeoff that for READMES I would not want to make.
Of course it's extensible, you can put HTML in it, and HTML is extensible.
That is like saying "Ruby is not slow, you can write native extensions in C". No, Markdown is not extensible.
This is awesome, is there a way to render the graphics/chart in svg so that we can implement something like hover & popup (with data information)?
Typst supports SVG output natively.
From past experience (may be different now): Typst supports SVGs that are actually vanilla SVGs. The SVG standard lets you embed a HTML page and CSS as a <foreignObject>, which only renders properly in a browser or something that bundles one (surprise!). This is not the fault of Typst and I think Typst is correct not to go down that route.
Just a heads up if you wonder why draw.io (diagrams.net) SVGs display as black boxes.