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Comment by nhoss2 | Hacker News Reader

how about making an app that just stores the .tex files, and to convert them to pdf or something, the .tex file gets sent to a server

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This is an interesting solution, because the problem is that the original codebase is messy and therefore not portable. It seems to happen to most software as it ages.

Putting it on a server makes the architecture more robust against messy code (and changes in programming languages and environments), because pieces can be changed independently.

The problem isn't that the original codebase is messy (it's aged, but there are still comparatively new projects working on it e.g. LuaTeX) or that it's non-portable, as demonstrated by the multitude of platforms it's available for.

The problem is roughly equivalent to producing a non-upgradable perl. It's not very useful on its own, but it's completely impractical to include a copy of the entire CPAN with it. And Apple's policies prevent you from downloading additional packages. It's just not worth the effort.

See: http://www.scribtex.com/

Somebody did: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/tex-touch/id377627321?mt=8

that doesn't solve the OP is really talking about, it merely moves it around.

why not? As I understand it, it would, as there would be no need to port (La)Tex to anything: just deploy it in a jailed environment on the server, and the thing you need to have on the ipad is a text editor and a pdf viewer.

It does not solve the problem of writing TeX on an iPad offline, obviously.

"convert them to pdf or something"

Yeah, that's what TeX does.

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