From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Nick Dokos Subject: Re: Efficiency of Org v. LaTeX v. Word Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 23:27:37 -0500 Message-ID: <87sig1d8ee.fsf@pierrot.dokosmarshall.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42787) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y4iyp-0008P9-Pg for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Dec 2014 23:27:57 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y4iyk-0003nG-QY for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Dec 2014 23:27:55 -0500 Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:46554) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y4iyk-0003n7-Jv for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Dec 2014 23:27:50 -0500 Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Y4iyj-0000ld-4S for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Sat, 27 Dec 2014 05:27:49 +0100 Received: from pool-108-20-41-17.bstnma.fios.verizon.net ([108.20.41.17]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 27 Dec 2014 05:27:49 +0100 Received: from ndokos by pool-108-20-41-17.bstnma.fios.verizon.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 27 Dec 2014 05:27:49 +0100 List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Ken Mankoff writes: > People here might be interested in a publication from [2014-12-19 Fri] > available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115069 > > Title: An Efficiency Comparison of Document Preparation Systems Used > in Academic Research and Development > > Summary: Word users are more efficient and have less errors than even > experienced LaTeX users. > > Someone here should repeat experiment and add Org into the mix, perhaps > Org -> ODT and/or Org -> LaTeX and see if it helps or hurts. I assume > Org would trump LaTeX, but would Org -> ODT or Org -> X -> DOCX (via > pandoc) beat straight Word? > The "study" is deeply flawed: Word users typed more text in 30 minutes than LaTeX users? 20% more? For straight text? I don't believe it: I think it's much more likely that the Word users were better typists on average and I didn't see any mention of normalizing the results by taking that into account. And for LaTeX, the editing environment is of paramount importance: did they mostly use vi, emacs, emacs+auctex? Other than a couple of vague sentences in the "Discussion" section, there is no mention of how this variable was (or was not) controlled. And did the LaTeX users have to type the preamble or were they allowed to use a template? It just seems unbelievable that there is such a big difference for straight text. I can believe perhaps that typing a table by hand into LaTeX is more error prone than typing it into Word (although to be honest, I have never done the latter, so I don't really know). With org and radio tables, this would be a non-issue on the LaTeX side. As for equations, even the authors admit that LaTeX is better, although they tend to minimize the differences as statistically insignificant (at least between the expert classes), which strikes me as somewhat suspect as well: there seems to be a 10% difference between the expert user averages and a bigger one for novices, although the error bars might overlap in the first case (although they don't look it). I don't think that even that would make the difference insignificant, but we'd have to analyze their raw results to make sure (which they do provide and which I took a look at, but afaict they don't provide answers to the questions I raised above; maybe we should suggest that the authors use org and reproducible results methods). Anyway, color me deeply suspicious of the "study". -- Nick