Agreed the OP was harsh in response but the point made regardless. Your caviler attitude in this thread, and overall post, makes me question your maturity as an industrial grade programmer but that moves towards ad hominem instead of healthy debate...this is not a sleight and will agree I lost the debate before it started.
Do keep in mind that modern software as you state are great tools for completed tools but very little options for those that create the tools themselves, IDE's for example but not limited to that concept. This leads to my point:
To paraphrase the OP, maybe some things should not be fucked with for "code purity" in the name of functional purity. If you vehemently disagree, make a better product. Critical mass will replace the failed ideology that ultimately leads to a better technology. All the flame wars in the world won't change this fact and ultimate outcome.
Thanks for not digressing :) To address your concern, yes I am not very mature as an industrial grade programmer. I have plenty of professional experience, but there's also plenty of experience still to be had.
I do understand my comments are inflammatory, and did not expect at all they'd be upvoted more than downvoted, but that seems to be the case.
Your standpoint is the one many in this thread have and I understand the least. This idea that "code purity" and functional purity are different.
The only reason that LaTex can not be improved is that its code is unaccessible. This means its functionality lies rigidly restricted in the 80s. In my opinion, there's nothing functionally pure about 70s/80s software. Back then, functionality followed from hardware restrictions.
Do keep in mind that modern software as you state are great tools for completed tools but very little options for those that create the tools themselves, IDE's for example but not limited to that concept. This leads to my point:
To paraphrase the OP, maybe some things should not be fucked with for "code purity" in the name of functional purity. If you vehemently disagree, make a better product. Critical mass will replace the failed ideology that ultimately leads to a better technology. All the flame wars in the world won't change this fact and ultimate outcome.