[HN Gopher] The highly involved build process for my doctoral di... ___________________________________________________________________ The highly involved build process for my doctoral dissertation Author : pabs3 Score : 37 points Date : 2023-12-08 09:10 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (spwhitton.name) (TXT) w3m dump (spwhitton.name) | applied_heat wrote: | Does anyone know any library that can swap a page in the pdf with | another without destroying the metadata? | analog31 wrote: | I use a Python library called pdfrw to take PDFs apart, notably | to work with sheet music. I think when you ask it for a page, | it returns the whole thing, and the PDF files that get written | are still readable PDFs. | | I assume that within the file structure are things that enable | an internal integrity check, such as maybe checksums or CRC's, | which would necessarily be different if the file contents are | different. | cozzyd wrote: | qpdf? | clankyclanker wrote: | pdftk? | agarsev wrote: | You can dump the metadata and then restore it, maybe that'll | work for you? | cozzyd wrote: | I too had a complicated Makefile for my dissertation, but since | then I've learned to use latexmk which seems to more or less do | everything for you... | | (ok, I guess I still often have a Makefile that calls latexmk and | sometimes produces some figures from scripts) | tkiolp4 wrote: | I've known PhDs in philosophy who can barely create slides in | power point... while others (like OP) go and use latex, create | open source software and use emacs. I've never seen such a | drastic difference in any other field. | KeplerBoy wrote: | Latex is the norm in all natural sciences and engineering | fields. Most people however are happy with putting their | content in someone else's templates. | jacurtis wrote: | I'm not sure how its possible to get a PhD in the modern era | without learning LaTex. It is the required markup and | publishing tool for any respected research publication. Since | PhDs require (at least mine did) multiple published works in | respected journals and conferences, I feel like LaTex is table- | stakes for doctoral research and degrees. | | Furthermore, outside of my dissertation work, the classes I | took often required you to produce other research works which | also had to be created with LaTex. Overleaf (a SaaS platform | for Latex collaboration and sharing) was essentially the | operating system of my PhD. I spent 75% of my time in there. | | I feel like it would be impossible to get a Doctoral degree | without LaTex knowledge. Maybe it depends on the university? | rnadomvirlabe wrote: | Microsoft Word still reigns supreme in many fields. Some | journals still require it as the format for submission. | fiddlerwoaroof wrote: | Yeah, my experience is that philosophy journals typically | expect word documents. | svara wrote: | This is all completely untrue in general. There are many | fields in which you'll be the annoying weirdo who tries to | force their tools on others if you insist on using latex. | | For example, Nature is so kind as to accept final submissions | in latex, but they'll convert it to Word. So it's completely | pointless. | | Frankly people using latex-beamer make me roll my eyes too. | It's a sign you care about tools more than outcome. If you're | making a presentation, your goal should be to produce the | ideal design to convey your message to the audience. Latex | always gets in the way of this. (Some latex wizards are going | to disagree obviously, but for the vast majority of users | it's true.) | light_hue_1 wrote: | > Frankly people using latex-beamer make me roll my eyes | too. It's a sign you care about tools more than outcome. If | you're making a presentation, your goal should be to | produce the ideal design to convey your message to the | audience. Latex always gets in the way of this. (Some latex | wizards are going to disagree obviously, but for the vast | majority of users it's true.) | | It's a sign that I care about outcome and efficiency. I | want the minimum effort on my part to have the maximum | clarity and impact. Beamer is that tool. | | I do roughly zero formatting, and in exchange I get | something that looks good, is very clear and simple for the | audience to understand, and has impact. | | The beauty of LaTeX is that it gets out of the way. I don't | need to think about formatting, I can think about content. | rsa4046 wrote: | > For example, Nature is so kind as to accept final | submissions in latex, but they'll convert it to Word. So | it's completely pointless. | | There is large gulf between submitting a paper (typically | limited to a few journal pages) to a well-equipped | organization like Springer Nature, and submitting a | manuscript hundreds of even thousands of pages in length to | a university dissertation office, when that document must | adhere scrupulously to various formatting requirements in | terms of tables, figures, pagination, citation, appendices, | cross-referencing, etc. Word is fine for memos, briefs, | letters, and other fairly short documents. But its | capabilities for creating complex documents that must | include cross-referencing, strict placement of tables, | figures, and other floats, citations, referencing, etc. | frankly suck. Students can't afford expensive typesetting | software: TeX and friends are high quality, stable, have a | large and knowledgeable user community, and most | importantly, are free. You can bet that publishing houses | aren't using Word and PowerPoint to produce anything beyond | email. They accept Word documents because of Microsoft's | market dominance, which is unrelated to the quality of | software they publish. | shpongled wrote: | Maybe in CS? | | In the life sciences, practically no one knows how to use | LaTeX, or has even heard of it. | amelius wrote: | Latex coding is the favorite bike shedding project of many CS | students. | ezequiel-garzon wrote: | On the technically advanced end of the spectrum you'll find | John MacFarlane [1], professor of philosophy at Berkeley and | creator of pandoc [2]. Some people are just amazing. | | [1] https://johnmacfarlane.net/ | | [2] https://pandoc.org/ | slow_typist wrote: | Incredibly talented guy. Incredibly useful software. | nohuck13 wrote: | "goals: ... replace the second page with a scanned copy ...after | it was signed by the examiners... reproducibly." | | Oh man, purist side quests like this are exactly how I would | procrastinate a philosophy dissertation. But building a complex | process for _reproducibly_ handling the once-in-a-lifetime event | of accepting your dissertation examiners' signatures is taking it | to a whole other level. | anonymouskimmer wrote: | For my M.S. I just looked up the relevant PDF merge utility for | Linux online. I can't even remember what it was now, but it | took the first x pages from the unsigned thesis, intercollated | the signed signing page, and then took the remaining pages from | the unsigned thesis, and output a single PDF. | | Edit: .zsh_history had it: | | > pdftk A=thesis.pdf B=approval.pdf cat A1-5 B1 A7-end output | signed_thesis.pdf | lapcat wrote: | What struck me was "Copyright (c) 2018-2023 Sean Whitton" on the | dissertation. 5 years? Ugh. | | True story: While writing my philosophy dissertation, I dropped | out of grad school to become a Mac developer, and a key factor | was the open source Mac bibliography app BibDesk. | https://bibdesk.sourceforge.io/ | dmd wrote: | Five years seems pretty normal? Shorter than that would be | extremely unusual. What are you saying here? | lapcat wrote: | I think you're confusing time spent in the doctoral program | vs. time spent writing the doctoral dissertation? | | This appears to be your resume, according to which you spent | five years total in the doctoral program. I'm pretty sure you | didn't start writing your dissertation on day one, since | there are years of coursework and other requirements before | you start writing your dissertation. | https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmdrucker | dmd wrote: | Ok, yeah, that's true. I'd guess "started working on stuff | that went into my thesis" to final product was about 3 | years. | | I actually remember the day I did "mkdir thesis" and then | said "WELP that's enough work for today!" | lapcat wrote: | Looks like 10 years in the program for the author. There | could have been a break before grad school, though he was | a teaching assistant as early as 2016. | https://spwhitton.name//philos/CV.pdf | | Ph.D. Philosophy, University of Arizona (expected 2023) | | MMathPhil, Mathematics and Philosophy, University of | Oxford (2013) | joosters wrote: | IMO, LaTeX is just a way for computer scientists to keep on | programming when they've finished their research project and are | writing it up. | ribit wrote: | My dissertation building process was similar. Only it also | involved a bunch of custom pandoc filters and the markdown had | runnable R code in it. Fun times. I didn't bother with replacing | the signed page though, because enough is enough. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-09 23:00 UTC)