this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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Programming

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[–] tfowinder@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

They say LaTex is done so the version number approach pi. Everytime they update it they get closer to pi

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's TeX, not LaTeX.

Don Knuth (who originally wrote TeX) had a real obsession with perfection. He even thought he could pay exponentially increasing awards to people who found errors in his books.

He eventually stopped doing that because he wasn't as perfect as he thought he was. Still way off the charts compared to the average person, though.

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 3 points 1 month ago

So perfect that everyone uses TeX, and no successors to it were ever developed.

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

At some point the bugs are features.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"All observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody."

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

That someone will eventually be a hacker.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 1 month ago

Wow, they took the joke much further than πthon

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

İmportant distinction: TeX is considered "perfect software" IIRC while LaTeX has evolved over time (or was still evolving when I last used it in the 2000s)