I use latex to write papers and am often annoyed by the process of working out the order that names should appear in the list of authors – it causes too may arguments early on, just when you don’t need them.
I’d like to know if there is a latex feature/snippit, they will let me enter the authors and their details, but randomise the order every time the latex is compiled. So my name might be first on one version, and then when I recompile, it would be someone else’s name first.
how would I start?
You can do this using PerlTex. By embedding some Perl code within your LaTex document you can easily randomize author names. This link shows how to do it. I haven’t tested if the code shown there actually works, but the principle should be clear.