These are some notes I wrote when I started out with typst when comparing with LaTeX:
1. It doesn't generate 5 bloody files when compiling.
2. Compiling is instant.
3. Diagnostics are way easier to understand (sort of like Rust compiler suggestion style).
4. List items can be either - item1 - item2, etc. or [item1], [item2]. The latter is way better because you can use anchoring to match on the braces (like "%" in vim), which means navigating long item entries is much easier.
5. In latex you have the \document{...} where you can't specify macros so they need to be at the top, in Typst you can specify the macros close to where you need them.
6. It's easier to version control and diff, especially if you use semantic line breaks.
7. Changing page layout, margins, spacing between things, etc., footers with page counters, etc. just seems way easier to do.
> 5. In latex you have the \document{...} where you can't specify macros so they need to be at the top, in Typst you can specify the macros close to where you need them.
You can define macros anywhere in a LaTeX document; it's packages that need to be loaded before \begin{document}.
> 6. It's easier to version control and diff, especially if you use semantic line breaks.
TeX mostly ignores whitespace, so semantic line breaks and version control should work equally well with both LaTeX and Typst.
(I agree with all your other points though)
I think what the GP means is that whitespace is often not ignored by LaTeX, so line breaks can cause extra wide spaces between words. It's common to comment out the line break in LaTeX for this reason. This is much less of an issue in Typst (if at all) due to the separation of code and content.
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/7453/what-is-the-use...