Wow.
Quite a long time since I created this blog. I have to admit I just checked back since I heard all blogger.commers could get Gmail account.

However, I do believe blogging is a good idea, and something I should try to do frequently.

I have also been thinking a bit about the toolchain I will set up for my PhD. Tor Dokken strongly recommends me to start writing as soon as possible, and I do intend to follow that advice.

However, that brings me to the big questing, what tool should one use for writing a thesis in year 2004-2007? Since I will be at CMA, my platform will probably be Linux.

LaTeX is tried and tested. But I do think it is getting a bit dated. After my Cand. Scient. thesis I told myself never to use it again. I don't know how mature LyX etc. has become. I will definitly not use Emacs as my editor. This is after all 2004, we have to come up with something better than a text only interface! Scientific Workingplace could be the frontend I am looking for, sadly there is no Linux port.

Mathematica is an interesting option. But documentation for how to use it mainly as a structured document editor is sparse.

XML based (DocBook, tbook etc.) Like LaTeX they lack and good WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) frontend.

OpenOffice I am afraid it does not scale well enough, beside I doubt the quality of the bibliography database. (This is where BibTex really shines.)


MS Office No Linux version, UiO provides office by the use of Tarantella or something. I am definitly not ruling this option out, but I would prefer an open format.