A twitter question from a young researcher.
Wait, how do paper writing collaborations work with LaTeX that doesn’t use overleaf? You need more than a .Tex file, right? Do you send the updates?
— Vanessa Sun 😷 (@vanessainstem) July 23, 2023
Wait, how did collaborative paper writing work before computers? Or even before commenting options in Microsoft word/Google docs? https://t.co/ta7OOlqNuU
Reminds me of the time one of my children asked me how I drove places before GPS.
By the late 80's people started to get comfortable sending latex files by email. BibTeX wasn't popular yet so LaTeX files tended to be self-contained. Mail back then added a ">" in front of any line beginning with "From" so you'd often see "¿From" in papers from that time.
We'd just take turns working on the paper. If we were really sophisticated, we'd work on different sections at the same time using a master file with \include statements. We added notes directly into the latex using comment lines beginning with %LANCE: Fix this!
Oh, and before GPS I used a physical map to get around that I kept in the car. The biggest challenge was folding the map back up afterwards. My kids didn't believe me.
As another young researcher, I worked on a couple of papers using old school/offline LaTex before dropping that in favor of Overleaf. We would use a git repository that contained the main latex file in addition to files for each section. Over email we coordinated who had "the token" on each section, i.e., who was allowed to make changes to each latex file so that work could be done in parallel without causing a lot of headaches with synchronizing our changes.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the worst system, and I'm sure there's smarter ways to manage this if you don't want to use Overleaf, but Overleaf is definitely a very welcome tool.
> We'd just take turns working on the paper. If we were really sophisticated, we'd work on different sections at the same time using a master file with \include statements. We added notes directly into the latex using comment lines beginning with %LANCE: Fix this!
ReplyDeleteThis is also how I collaborated as recently as 2018. Works very well, I can assure you.
I wrote a survey on factoring polynomials over finite fiels my first semester in grad school (1980) on a TYPEWRITER. Biggest problem: I don't have a copy now. Frankly, no great loss.
ReplyDeleteI've seen upside-down-question marks in conference proceedings papers.
NOT needing to be in the same place as your co-authors (in some cases never even meeting your co-authors) may have a massive impact (probably already does) in that the notion of being at a ``better school'' may decline some.
I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on paper, then paid one of the math department secretaries to type it. She used an IBM Selectric typewriter. It looks good.
ReplyDeletei am told people used to do this.
DeleteWas TeX that challenging to master back in the day? TeX was the piece of software i assume. What is odd is that we are talking about MIT, a place filled with clusters running Athena on them. So, it couldn't be unfamiliarity with TeX but just ... unwillingness?
Project Athena started in 1983, the year I got my Ph.D. Some years later, I bought PCTeX for my own PC. PCTeX was founded in 1985. A good PC version of TeX was moderately expensive in those days. After that, I bought Y&Y TeX, and used it for a long time.
DeleteI wrote my thesis using the word processing language troff which was awful to use. I learned TeX and LaTeX the following year and wish i had learned it earlier.
ReplyDeletePapers in biology often have dozens of authors. Can the use overleaf with that many? Or does only a small subset do the writing?
Overleaf is a privacy issue. Email is already not safe but then relying on something like Overleaf makes me equally uneasy. I think there's nothing wrong with using the email approach and I doubt everyone is using overleaf.
ReplyDeleteMid-career TCS researcher here. I've used Overleaf, I've used shared Dropbox folders, I've used git and svn, and I've used (God have mercy) datestamped .tex-files forwarded in email chains. Unfortunately, in every project the model has been set by the least technologically savvy coauthor. Fortunately, Overleaf does now work as a common denominator for those unwilling to use git!
ReplyDeleteOverleaf is lovely for making small edits while collaborating, but Overleaf just isn't a good text editor. For major edits I insist on Emacs. So combining git or subversion with each author's favorite text editor is still my preferred method. I wish for a tool that combines Overleaf's ease of concurrent editing with use-your-favorite-editor, but I can't envision how that could be accomplished.
ReplyDeleteThe same here -- but Overleaf's Vim emulation is pretty good!
DeleteJonathan: Overleaf supports git integration. See [here](https://www.overleaf.com/learn/how-to/Git_Integration_and_GitHub_Synchronization). Basically you can treat overleaf like a remote git repository. I have used this on several occasions and it's pretty easy. You can edit in emacs (or whatever) and then update overleaf just using "git commit" and then "git push". If your coauthor makes edits on overleaf then you just use "git pull" to update your local version.
ReplyDeletegood luck with setting up everything for overleaf. As if i have not enough things on my plate. Additionally, huge privacy concern wth the overleaf platform. thank you, no thank u.
DeleteOverleaf is quick and easy, but does not handle versioning as well as git
ReplyDelete