Re: Latex Reference Material

[Martin Dickopp <martin@zero-based.org>]

John Hasler <jhasler@debian.org> writes:
> She actually likes markup languages (she first used one in 1975: *fmt
> at Michigan).  She just needs a well-written document that does not
> assume that she already knows the basics.

I've learned LaTeX from "LaTeX: A Document Preparation System" by Leslie
Lamport (the "La" in "LaTeX"). It assumes the reader knows how to use a
text editor and how to run commands from the command line, but nothing
else.

It does have a large chapter about math typesetting, but that can be
skipped. It doesn't describe the plethora of LaTeX packages out there,
but only the most fundamental ones.

All that said, the book is not DFSG-free, but under the proprietary "all
rights reserved" license found in almost all printed books.

> Having studied at Michigan in the 1970s her standards for computer
> documentation are rather high.

Having studied more than 4000 miles spatially and 20 years temporally
away from that, I have no idea what it implies to have studied there and
then. :)

Seriously, some people learn better from descriptive texts, while other
perfer documentation which is as close to a formal specification as
possible. About two thirds of Lamport's book should appeal to the former
type of person, while one third is a kind of reference. However, if your
wife is the kind of person who has learned or would learn, say, C++ by
reading the corresponding ISO standard from the first to the last page,
there are probably better texts than Lamport's book.

Martin