It would be super tough to replace TeX for its intended users and uses.
There was a GRIM problem -- getting math typed for high quality work in math, science, engineering, and technology. TeX was a terrific solution. The problem has not much changed, and TeX remains a terrific solution.
Or the problem was to put black marks on white paper with math and English with high quality. Now we put black marks on a white background in a PDF file -- fine. How to do that was the problem, and TeX is a terrific solution. Or, the intended TeX users are for the intended uses concerned mostly with the math, just the math. For the math, we need the TeX math fonts and the AMS fonts and how TeX formats the math in 2D, but we don't need color, 3D, GUIs, popups, pull downs, rollovers, animation, hot links, text boxes, radio buttons, drag and drop, icons, etc.
Good TeX users have lots of macros for TeX, editor macros for TeX, papers in TeX, knowledge of TeX, documentation of TeX, skills with TeX, and journals that will accept papers in TeX and don't want to lose these or replace them.
For 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG), 'what you see is all you've got', and for the intended users and uses, WYSIWYG is very much a step backwards (I would yell and scream bloody murder) and NOT wanted.
Similarly I care from not very much down to not at all for support of all of Unicode, color, graphics, animation, direct output of PDF, output of HTML/CSS, 3D, CAD features, etc.
For a lot more in functionality, I don't want to struggle with a LOT more in documentation, quality likely much lower than TeX directly from the hands of Knuth, years of bug fixes and version changes, time to acquire skills, time to write new macros, effort to struggle with journals that still want TeX instead of something new, etc.
TeX is one of my most important tools. To have me give up TeX will require twisting it out of my cold, dead fingers.
Net, there was grim problem, and it has not much changed. TeX was and remains a terrific solution. Done. That TeX won't slice bread is just irrelevant.
There was a GRIM problem -- getting math typed for high quality work in math, science, engineering, and technology. TeX was a terrific solution. The problem has not much changed, and TeX remains a terrific solution.
Or the problem was to put black marks on white paper with math and English with high quality. Now we put black marks on a white background in a PDF file -- fine. How to do that was the problem, and TeX is a terrific solution. Or, the intended TeX users are for the intended uses concerned mostly with the math, just the math. For the math, we need the TeX math fonts and the AMS fonts and how TeX formats the math in 2D, but we don't need color, 3D, GUIs, popups, pull downs, rollovers, animation, hot links, text boxes, radio buttons, drag and drop, icons, etc.
Good TeX users have lots of macros for TeX, editor macros for TeX, papers in TeX, knowledge of TeX, documentation of TeX, skills with TeX, and journals that will accept papers in TeX and don't want to lose these or replace them.
For 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG), 'what you see is all you've got', and for the intended users and uses, WYSIWYG is very much a step backwards (I would yell and scream bloody murder) and NOT wanted.
Similarly I care from not very much down to not at all for support of all of Unicode, color, graphics, animation, direct output of PDF, output of HTML/CSS, 3D, CAD features, etc.
For a lot more in functionality, I don't want to struggle with a LOT more in documentation, quality likely much lower than TeX directly from the hands of Knuth, years of bug fixes and version changes, time to acquire skills, time to write new macros, effort to struggle with journals that still want TeX instead of something new, etc.
TeX is one of my most important tools. To have me give up TeX will require twisting it out of my cold, dead fingers.
Net, there was grim problem, and it has not much changed. TeX was and remains a terrific solution. Done. That TeX won't slice bread is just irrelevant.