RinohType is interesting to me because I too am frustrated by TeX/LaTeX. I agree with others that RinohType isn't (yet) a "modern LaTeX". But we need more efforts like this (see for example the excellent Lout by Jeffrey H. Kingston).

First, let me make it clear that I'm a big big fan of Knuth and Lamport and I respect the amazing impact that TeX/LaTeX have had in the Math/Science/Engineering communities. They are clearly a lot smarter than I am, and I owe them a debt for their contributions to CS. I've read Knuth's original papers on Alpha-Beta search, LR-parsing, etc., I own almost all of his books, and I've studied the Art of Computer Programming in depth since the first editions.

TeX is an amazing feat of programming. I had a friend that was in the same fraternity as Knuth as a student. This friend was a great programmer and even he was in awe of Knuth's abilities as a programmer. Look at the history of TeX, the decisions and approaches that Knuth considered and undertook. It's absolutely amazing, and then he essentially gave it away, one of the first and most important Open Source projects!

But, please, can't we come up with a new replacement for LaTeX? By now, it should be obvious that there are only about 7 people in the world that really understand LaTeX/TeX (and I'm not one of them). Hang out on http://tex.stackexchange.com and see what I mean. I've used LaTeX for almost 30 years; it's the first tool I reach for when preparing a document. Thirty years of it is enough.

Now, I write my own styles (.sty files) and complex macros, but the experience isn't pleasant. I think it's here that something needs to be done. I've never been able to convince more than ten percent of the software engineers that have worked for me to use LaTeX. It's not that they don't like markup or programming. It's the mess caused by TeX's macro based extension language. This leads to less than helpful error messages, cryptic behavior, and is a barrier to anyone wishing to take advantage of the underlying power of TeX.

I don't think anyone will try to argue that the TeX macro system is so elegant and powerful or that I simply haven't spent enough time with it, but let me say this, I've programmed for 45 years and I've used macros plenty. I've written packages of macros running on IBM (big machine) assemblers, did assembly language real-time programming for years, implemented macro programming systems like Calvin Mooers Reactive Typewriter [1] and concatenative programming languages like FORTH. Nothing, to me, is more frustrating than trying to write a sophisticated LaTeX package. I've patched boot loaders from the front panel switches of mainframes that wouldn't boot, debugged real time programs containing thousands of lines of assembler, used C++ templates and Haskell types. All of this is easier than writing a fancy new TeX macro. I don't like writing as much as programming, why do the tools have to make it even harder?

Fundamentally, I think that using macros is the wrong way to write extensions and customizations in LaTeX/TeX, the abstractions used to construct anything complex leak too many implementation details. For some of my projects I've found it easier to write custom filters in Python that preprocess input files into plain LaTeX. This observation isn't unique to Latex [2].

LaTeX3 and LuaTeX kept me interested in TeX; I hoped that they would make programming TeX packages and customization easier. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time left to wait for them; they move at a glacial pace and are essentially indistinguishable from abandon-ware. As those 7 guys that understand TeX move on to get real jobs, these projects falter and don't go anywhere. The LuaTeX web-site has been stuck on version 0.6 for thirty months.

Please, can't the community come up with something? Or point me towards a project with a license that I could contribute to.

[1] TRAC (the reactive typewriter system) is a macro based programming system, described in Computer Lib/Dream Machines a 1974 book by Ted Nelson and by its inventor Mooers in the CACM, Volume 9 Issue 3, March 1966 Pages 215-219.

[2] http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/12/17/macros-why-theyr...