Dear all, apparently the LaTeX Noob is not alone to be a noob 😉 I just realized I had to approve your comments before they are published. Oops 😉 Will see to that more quickly in the future. Also, I heard that some of you were not able to find contact information which maybe I might have messed up too 😉 I guess I just hadn’t really thought about having actual readers who want to contact me so far. And I am very happy that you exist and do wish to contact me! I will therefore add my contact info in the about section. Sorry, I am such a complete idiot not to have thought about this before 😉 Best and thanks again for all your positive feedback!
Ramblings
[Guest Post] Confessions of a LaTeX Noob
I am happy to introduce my first guest post on this blog. It’s from my archaeologist friend whom we decided to call “the LaTeX Noob” here. She will give her perspective on how using LaTeX in the Humanities feels for her and the problems she has encountered. Like how getting help can be tricky, you don’t want to look like an idiot and how you constantly have to defend your choice to use LaTeX (to users and non-users alike). “Why would a Humanities person want to use LaTeX anyway? You don’t need it and you’re not up for it” are the most common insults a Humanities person might have to endure after choosing LaTeX. Here come the confessions of a LaTeX Noob: Confessions of a LaTeX Noob Okay, here I am, the LaTeX noob. Well, not that noob-noob, but noob nonetheless. I am an archaeologist and I am trying to write my thesis in LaTeX. Well, my catalogue, to
Planning your project for “service providers”
When writing my last post on how to earn money with LaTeX I realized I actually had a lot of advice on planning and scheduling your project as well. So I will sum up my experiences with all sorts of “customers” (be it project partners or whatever you have). Motivation This is not to complain how horrible things are but just to sum up a few things you should take into account that an unexperienced person might not find self-evident. Seeing as my days of being unexperienced myself are not very far away, the learning process is still pretty fresh and I still remember the problems a beginner can face, so I hope to be able to provide valuable advice. Some of the advice is copied out of the earning money post, so don’t be confused if you feel like you might have already read some of this. Initially I had wanted to extend the old article but since it already
How to quit MS Word for good
I want to dedicate this post to the pressing question of how to live without MS Word in the Word-filled environment of Academia where Word lurks behind every tree and jumps at you when you’re not paying attention. Do you actually enjoy this eternal distraction of a non-working text editor? Well, I don’t. And even though it’s not actually a good tool (if you’re being honest with yourself, deep down in your heart, you know I’m right), it has infested the world (not only of Academia). How the story begins… At some point, now over a year ago, I decided that I wanted to quit MS Word once and for all. I had hoped to do that before but every single time, I had came up with about a million excuses why I just couldn’t. Probably kind of like you are now already preparing your counter arguments as to why that might work for me but it sure as hell
Learn programming from a book vs. tutorial? Thoughts on deliberate practice
In this short little post, I want to share some thoughts on deliberate practice and how it affects coding, learning how to program, etc. I will argue that, in the long run, you can only become a better programmer with some systematic (self-)education, be it from books or academic classes. Tutorials alone, on the other hand, get you actionable quickly but do this at the expense of providing “the bigger picture” which will ultimately harm and slow down your progress. The concept of deliberate practice I have been intrigued by the concept of ‘deliberate practice’ for a few years now. It mostly comes up in the context of the so-called 10.000h rule (popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s The tipping point – which is full of blatantly false information by the way and has been debunked by Steven Pinker, see Resources). Deliberate practice is needed for expertise and reaching a level of mastery. If you just want the ‘quick fix’, don’t bother
read more Learn programming from a book vs. tutorial? Thoughts on deliberate practice
Markdown problems
Dear all, just a little info that I am having trouble with the WordPress Markdown support. Which is actually not a correct statement because it really doesn’t work. So let’s say WordPress’s alleged-markdown-but-not-actually-supporting-markdown-thingy. Which has caused me hours of worry already. The code support works ok but not if written in MarkDown. I will do everything using keyboard shortcuts from now on so it will be ok in the future. However, I continue to find serious markdown problems in the old posts. I’m working hard to get rid of them. But some of them are really tricky and tedious, so this might take a while. Particularly horrible is the code support using XML. Because the editor will do some automatic whatever and ruin the XML, trying to make HTML out of it via auto-correct or something. I will not use that feature anymore to spare you and me the inconvenience. Until then, please bear with me until I have tidied
Learning “Advanced LaTeX” – The LaTeX Ninja Project
I had been using LaTeX for 5+ years and had always wanted to “do more”. But somehow I never did. The LaTeX Ninja was not a label I put on myself – it was a goal. I wanted to become a LaTeX Ninja and I wrote it down in my notebook. The plan Just before Christmas this year, I rediscovered that old piece of paper. I had been working in Paris at the time and I had already typeset one book with LaTeX but was no further along the path of the LaTeX adept than I had been when the idea of “wanting to become a LaTeX Ninja” had first crossed my mind. Then, that summer when I was working in Paris, I decided: if I ever wanted things to happen, I had to put my plans into action. So during my last week in Paris, I started diving into what I want to call “Advanced LaTeX” (see [THIS POST]
read more Learning “Advanced LaTeX” – The LaTeX Ninja Project
Why most “learn programming” classes, books and attempts fail
This seems to be a bold claim. Let me explain… There are two reasons why I think most introductory programming classes fail ant that is a) because they never actually teach prorgramming (i.e. “algorithmic thinking”, not the syntax of one concrete language / “your first language”)) and b) because they bombard students with tons of complicated subjects which are not necessary at the beginning, so nobody remembers or understands them anyway. But they confuse the students and distract them from what they really should learn like how to interact with the machine and basic flow control. Use a visual language (like Scratch for PC or Catrobat for mobile devices) and thank me later. Algorithmic thinking When we want to learn or teach how to program, we first need to define what programming is. Like in a human language, knowing the words and the grammar is not enough – knowing a language means “knowing how to communicate using that language”. For
read more Why most “learn programming” classes, books and attempts fail
On Didactical Reduction (especially in the DH)
Didactical reduction means abstracting complexity to facilitate learning. It is the act of reducing and simplifying teaching material as to promote student learning. Sadly, I feel that didactical reduction doesn’t accomplish its ends most of the time. Here is why and how I think we could do better. The road to hell is paved with good intentions I have seen many classes where the content to be taught was reduced so drastically that is became simple and clear – but maybe **too simple and clear. It became meaningless.** The material became so easy to understand (or, even worse, a complex topic was made to seem like a banality), so that students stopped paying attention. “I already know this” or “I get this” are not necessarily thoughts a teacher wants to provoke. We use didactical reduction so that the complexity of a topic is hidden and we don’t scare our pupils. But fear isn’t always a bad thing. Fear means respect. And
The Name of the Game: How to pronounce LaTeX correctly (once and for all – or not)
In this post, I want to address the question of how to pronounce “LaTeX”. And explain to you, why this question cannot be answered if you want to take the investigation seriously. It turns out to be a classical Humanities’ style thinking kind of logical dilemma. Unlike other explanations, I dont’ want to provide an answer (because there isn’t one) but rather explain why this question is not just a matter of “knowing how it’s pronounced” and thereby, show why we need the Humanities. Description of the current situation There are multiple pronounciations currently in use which are all considered to be more or less valid. But it can sometimes come to holy wars if you refuse to adopt the accepted pronounciation at large in your social or work environment. This is why I want to prove in this article that the question of how to pronounce “LaTeX” is actually a logical dilemma we can’t solve. I thus invite everyone
read more The Name of the Game: How to pronounce LaTeX correctly (once and for all – or not)
LaTeX Code of conduct
Dear friends, today I would like to talk to you about one very serious topic: becoming a good LaTeX user. I say this as someone who definitely had to go through a painful conversion process. I now shall confess my sins: I used to ignore LaTeX errors when they didn’t seem to affect the output (meaning there would be PDF output, no fatal error stopping LaTeX from compiling, plus maybe no overly visible problems). I shudder to confess it now but: Nonstopmode was my best friend. To spare you, my friends, from following me down this path of vice and misery, I want to bring up the subject of good LaTeX conduct today. Read error messages, then ACT ON THEM At least try to figure out what’s going on. If you make this a habit, you will not only learn a lot and actively get better at LaTeX with all the (hopefully not totally fruitless) online research you’ll be doing.
LaTeX Ninja'ing and the Digital Humanities 