Comment by yummypaint
7 days ago
This could be useful for undergrads getting their feet wet with LaTeX and the world of publishing. However, I'm very skeptical that the options are broad enough to conform to the exacting style guidelines typical of PhD theses. Usually people use a template from their school which already formats everything, autogenerates the table of contents, etc.
In fact it isn't clear what this system offers over a LaTeX document started from a template and hosted privately on GitHub. The CI pipeline can even be set up to compile the document for the people who want to be able to do everything in a web browser.
LaTeX was much easier with Overleaf for my PhD thesis. I still recommend that for friends starting a thesis or a book project. I even used it for recent book project with a friend.
As you noted, one needs a lot of fine tuning to meet publication rules & guidelines. Compared to a local LaTeX editor or Overleaf, this looks too generic to meet the needs I've had in the past. Sure, LaTeX can require a lot of tinkering, but PhD students ought be able to figure it out for themselves, whether through documentation, forums, or asking labmates.
I would suggest Typst nowadays. Much easier to get into imo. Unfortunately though it doesn't have backwards compatibility for LaTeXs math notation.
I wouldn’t, solely because it’s still in version 0.X - for any long-term, important project (e.g., PhD dissertation) I’d recommend LaTeX due to A) it’s mature and B) many universities provide LaTeX templates.