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Comment by law | Hacker News Reader

Although I use LaTeX for my resume, it's also worth checking out PGF/TikZ: http://ctan.math.utah.edu/ctan/tex-archive/graphics/pgf/base...

The learning curve is very steep, but if you're doing anything creative with the organization or representation of content, you'll fare far better with PGF and TikZ than you will with LaTeX.

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Isn't TikZ (and PGF, I assume) a library for LaTeX? It seems odd to have one without the other.

PGF/TikZ are low- and high-level packages that can be used from LaTeX as well as from the original TeX. The packages allow you to program graphics just as you'd program a document, but it gives you finer control over graphical relations between entities. It's better to check out http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/ to get an idea of what's possible.

Does 'steep learning curve' not mean the rate of learning (X: time and Y:knowledge) is high, thus a little effort outputs lots of knowledge?

Heh, I never actually took the time to think of the literal meaning of the phrase. Nevertheless, the quantity modified by 'steep' is in fact scalar and thus 'steep' affects only the magnitude. It reveals nothing about the underlying nature of the quantity, which could indeed be the inverse rate of learning or something like that.

That's what it's supposed to mean, but everyday usage is the opposite.

No. It's not about plotting curves and axes.

It means you have a steep curve to climb to learn it --ie an allusion to climbing a mountain.

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