On Friday 22 December 2006 08:18, Norbert Preining wrote:
The main difference between ConTeXt and LaTeX lies in the fact that LaTeX was created with the idea of separating content and presentation to such an extent that the typical author would write their content and then use a style file created by someone else to provide the visual presentation. . ConTeXt, on the other hand, retained the idea of separating content and presentation, but was created with the idea of being used for books, where each book tends to have a different layout, and so the expected "end user" is the person doing all the layout. Thus, it's designed to provide a vast amount of flexibility for layout in a way that can be fairly easily defined without needing to write a package
Since one can move one's layout into a package in a few seconds and then include that package into a document, I think this somewhat misses the mark. Latexstualists may disagree but I think the essence is that Context gives more control and makes it easier to create new layouts. Whether or not those new layouts are in a document file or a separate package is not relevant. Nor is the original purpose for which Context was created relevant, as both Latex and Context are used for a lot more than math papers and books. --Mike Bird