#til For quite some time I wanted #pyhon code folding in #emacs and even tried several packages but none of them worked as I expected it.
Now I realized that the built-in hideshow mode does exactly what I want.
Another example that the answer to "can Emacs do that" is always "yes" and very often even has it built-in. Amazing!
@ericsfraga @mstempl I learned about all three of #Emacs, #TeXLaTeX, and #literateprogramming at the same time in the late 1980s.
The first two always went together, and the third was a dream, a thing only the gods upon Mount Knuth-lympus could do.
Then, much later! Oh happy day! #OrgMode came along, and all three were baked into a warm, delicious pound cake. The tool that decisively allowed me to become a confident Emacs user was to make my config a literate Org document. Inspired by @sacha's example! Having it be a document, structured as an outline, with paragraphs of prose, was just qualitatively different from a monolithic lisp file.
Collapsing outline elements (1) allow fractal movement between a gestalt and detailed view, and (2) impose structure. There is no way to overstate how necessary are both of these for managing even as small a project as my ... HOLY SHIT, I JUST LOOKED, and my config is more than 1,800 lines of code!
Okay, point proved
@jameshowell @ericsfraga @mstempl @sacha
I used to know #LaTeX quite well, and used #AucTeX in #emacs to write my LaTeX. I've realized that since I started using #OrgMode to write documents, my needed knowledge of LaTeX has dropped about 90%!
In 2026 (as in 2006!) LaTeX really ought to be an intermediate output format of something that makes an abstract syntax tree (org-export or pandoc). Especially when you can still write it by hand when you need total control. Truly the best of both worlds.
@davemq @jameshowell @ericsfraga @mstempl @sacha
True.
However, you've switched from a very rich syntax (#LaTeX) to a very simplistic one (lightweight markup language - #LML). There's a difference in output: https://karl-voit.at/2015/07/26/LaTeX-typography/
Don't get me wrong: I, too, prefer writing documents in #Orgmode and exporting to PDF myself. It's a very good compromise.
Meanwhile, I'd not care if the process switched from org->(pdf)latex->PDF to org-> #typst ->PDF or anything similar.
However, I'm not so sure if I'd use Org for setting a document where I really want to get the maximum, like I tried with my PhD thesis: https://karl-voit.at/tagstore/en/papers.shtml
Edit: also related: https://karl-voit.at/2017/08/26/latex-fetish/
@publicvoit @sacha @mstempl @jameshowell @davemq
What makes all the difference is that org allows embedded LaTeX so the difference in capabilities (i.e. actual outputs) can be reduced to 0 if you wish.
@ericsfraga @sacha @mstempl @jameshowell @davemq I disagree.
Maybe in theory but I personally do not want to apply micro-typography via this method. This would look very ugly in org. 😞
@publicvoit You're correct, of course, that there is a big difference between "typesetting typography to produce a book" and "producing a document that looks very good, with all the benefits of Emacs and Org, and a large subset of the benefits of LaTeX."
The point is that the former is available to few, with very high costs, and the latter is available to all Emacs users.
@publicvoit @davemq @jameshowell @mstempl @sacha In my experience, including writing a book in org, the vast majority of the explicit LaTeX specifications I use are part of the LaTeX preamble and so do not clutter up the main text. The rest are mostly attributes for images and tables.
This means that I can continue to use org for outlining etc. with minimal markup while retaining the quality of output that LaTeX enables.
YMMV, of course, which is perfectly fine. :-)
@ericsfraga @davemq @jameshowell @mstempl @sacha I see.
Then we do have different point of views what typographic optimization means.
Yours is limited to preamble settings. My argument also included micro typography which you do ignore.
Which is perfectly fine but we're talking about two different goals here whose results in two different levels of PDF documents.
And yeah: if you do ignore microtypographic optimization, the reason to use LaTeX is not that obvious any more. 😉
@publicvoit It's all true, and I think we're all agreeing.
I suspect there is a use here of your word that we don't have: "Schwerpunkt." Perhaps? A question only of emphasis of effort and need.
Martin Stemplinger
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