Leap to \LaTeX\

I don't write reports.  I train my laptop to write them for me.

The trusty data warehouse is doing its thing, and the robots are tirelessly generating data... time to revisit automated data reduction.  A couple of years ago I hacked together some perl and Octave to produce HTML/CSS reports... an ok solution but not ideal because HTML just doesn't match up..

Continuing my "right tool for the right job" mantra, here's a quick-n-dirty-n-kinda stupid Taguchi matrix comparing the suitability of some popular file formats for automated reporting.

So according to this, .TEX is the best format for my needs (and HTML that I've been using for years was the worst choice.  Woops!)  The short form on this decision is:

• on my end (the source) it supports a variety of tools and has a stable, flexible format
• for everybody else (aka the SINKS) .PDF is a polished product

There was just this one little problem, minor thing... but... you see... I know squat, about  \TeX\.  But after a day of poking around and making mistakes, I'm ready.  And suddenly the idea of merging thousands of data plots from two different reports, well, it makes me giggle.  Bring it on, Robots!

- nzvyyx

ps A big THAN-Q to ASME for their asme2e document class, and to TexMaker and MikTeX for doing a great job making PDFs