Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!cje From: cje@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Cthulhu's Jersey Epopt) Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: yet another new TeX user aghast at the "TeXBook" !!!!!! Message-ID: Date: 25 Apr 89 14:48:33 GMT References: <1481@hub.ucsb.edu> <1006@sas.UUCP> Organization: Miskatonic U. Computer Operations & User Services Lines: 28 Cc: cje In article <1006@sas.UUCP> bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) writes: > Anyway, RUN, do not WALK to a book store and pick up a copy of LaTeX: > A Document Preperation System, by Leslie Lamport. Latex is a macro > package for TeX; more importantly, it is described with a book that > you can actually read--with a real reference section in the back! Well, maybe you can walk, after all... As much as I love LaTeX, I really dislike Lamport's book as a reference manual. My main complaint is the split-personality of the thing: semi-friendly how-to book in the front, technical reference in the back. This would be OK if the technical reference were complete, but it's not. Many's the time I've tried to look something up in it only to be referred to the front part of the book, or have the front part not mention an important (to me, at the time) option. And the index is almost as unhelpful as the TeXbook's index: which of the "main entries" on this topic is actually the one you want? Lamport's done a superb job with programming the package, but I think he should have left the technical documentation to someone who understands technical documentation and how users read and need to read such things. -- Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin, Chris Jarocha-Ernst UUCP: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers!elbereth.rutgers.edu!cje ARPA: JAROCHAERNST@CANCER.RUTGERS.EDU