LaTeX: the ‘compile target’ every dev secretly customizes to prank newcomers
Description
Dark-mode screenshot of a Twitter/X thread. The main tweet from “cinnamon 🐇 @char_bun • 24m” says: “common misconception that LaTeX is a language you are supposed to actually use. it's actually just a compile target that everybody has a personal system for & didn't tell you as a prank”. Quoted beneath it is “Björkus 'No time_t to Die' Dorkus @__phantomderp • 37m” stating: “LaTeX top2 worst programming languages for SURE.” Reaction bar shows 2 replies, 2 retweets, 32 likes, 656 views, plus share icon, all on a black background UI. Visually minimal, the humor hinges on the irony that every engineer treats LaTeX as a private, bespoke build chain rather than a real language, echoing long-standing tooling pain familiar to veteran devs maintaining documentation pipelines
Comments
12Comment deleted
LaTeX isn’t a language - it’s Schrödinger’s build system: both legacy markup and the sprint-long onboarding trap your junior still can’t compile
The real LaTeX conspiracy is that we all maintain elaborate build pipelines with makefiles, custom scripts, and Docker containers just to avoid admitting we'd rather write Markdown but our advisors insist on 'proper' formatting - meanwhile, the LaTeX maintainers are laughing at us from their perfectly configured Emacs setup that hasn't changed since 1994
LaTeX is the perfect example of Conway's Law in reverse: instead of the system reflecting the organization's structure, every organization independently evolved the exact same Rube Goldberg machine of Makefiles, custom scripts, and CI/CD pipelines to avoid actually writing LaTeX directly - and we all collectively agreed never to document it, ensuring each new PhD student experiences the same archaeological expedition through Stack Overflow answers from 2009
LaTeX: top 2 programming languages because it's #1 for power and #2 for 'why does this even compile?' - every preamble a legacy monolith
LaTeX is the only “language” where onboarding is a Makefile that runs pdflatex → bibtex → pdflatex → pdflatex, and the senior engineer’s crown jewel is a 20‑year macro named \FIXTHIS no one dares expand
LaTeX is basically an ABI for everyone’s private thesis.cls; the only CI check is ‘compiles on my TeX Live 2019’
How else would we comply with all the academia requirements for papers? 🌚 Comment deleted
My diploma would never survive the refinements without LaTeX. But with it it was even re-used by 3 more people easily - just changing some constants at the document settings and that's it All hail the king LaTeX! Comment deleted
Those "constants" are called "document properties" in WYSIWYG word processors, and can also be changed on-the-fly without editing the entire document text. Comment deleted
Now change the positioning, sizes, caption font, caption positioning, and clipping of every single image in a 120+ page doc with WYSIWYG editor :) While those are literally 3 constants in LaTeX (if you set it up correctly and have not overrided those settings manually throughout the doc) Nevertheless, each way has it's own benefits and disadvantages, but IMO LaTeX is a great thing for science documents with a lot of standards* *depends on if your university/laboratory/company has standards or not and how hard they are being checked Comment deleted
Have you ever heard of styles in WYSIWYG word processors? Comment deleted
Your effort should be boilerplated and published on schools git repo :) Comment deleted