In any case, I'm curious whether aes is necessary, or whether it would suffice to drop this function entirely and just use keys in the mapping (similarly for labs). Or, more broadly, whether using patterns from other implementations of the Grammar of Graphics is a conscious decision, or some sort of legacy baggage.
Just a heads up if you wonder why draw.io (diagrams.net) SVGs display as black boxes.
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 work with a lot of people in academia who work with LaTeX. I haven't met anyone who knows Typst even exists. And the source material is usually just thrown in Word or LibreOffice.
The problem is also momentum. Do you rewrite 30 years' of CTAN contributions, internal templates/styles and the toolchain off and start again or not? There's not much reason to. And you will hit the same brick walls doing so that you hit with TeX the first time round.
If it is a greenfield, possibly, but all the orgs I've seen using LaTeX have been using TeX since the dawn of time and respect the accumulated knowledge rather than the distraction of a new tool.
my experience is the opposite. Due to LaTeX's arcane scripting and the lack of interest people have in learning it beyond "it compiles on overleaf", I'm seeing a lot of accumulated superstition. People copying and pasting preambles with useless packages, unused newcommands. Worse, people sometimes use their group's newcommands without being aware of the native functions, e.g. \beginmymatrix replacing \begin{pmatrix}. Even if change is slow, any amount of Typst adoption is good.
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.
> 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
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.
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.
cool, why do you think people use tikz? And like generating images programmatically from text is impossibly more powerful than using vector editors.
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.
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.
Huh? How do you do this stuff with markdown?
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.
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.
Markdown is not competing with latex or typst, it is competing with (and has won against) .txt files
= 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.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".
Typst is not going to replace it.
That said I was not a huge latex user and nowadays I use typst a lot. Typst is everything I was expected from latex.
The content is in markdown and loaded by typst with cmarker