Re: [NTG-context] State of documentation of ConTeXt?

On 7/16/2014 5:08 PM, Russ Urquhart wrote:

I have been a tech writer for more than 25 years. I have been using and learning Context for the last few years. I would agree with everyone in thanking Hans and everyone else for this great product and it's support. It's been mentioned that the source is available to view. Is it possible that, given some standard of commenting with the code , a tool like Doxygen could be used to compile a reference guide of sorts?

the interface is described in cont-en.xml (should be updated, yes) there's also: context --ctx=s-mod font-sel.mkvi

My dream would be to be able to work on a Context documentation effort.

Russ

Sent from my iPhone

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On Jul 16, 2014, at 5:14 AM, Alan BRASLAU wrote:

Ah, the great documentation project!

The problem concerning writing documentation is that it must be done by someone who knows ConTeXt well enough to know what to say or else know where to look or ask about subjects that are less well known to him or her. Many attempts at "improving" the documentation have been started.

Anyone is free to write a book, but is there enough of a market to make it commercially viable? Yet a good book can also be a key to the success of any system.

As Hans wrote earlier, one possibility is to fund a documentation project that would allow someone to devote the necessary time to achieve this (as well as to allow a few key developers to take the time necessary to assist in this project, as Mojca suggests). We would need to identify who could fund such a project as well as who could be qualified to carry it through.

Right now, the community (and in particular Hans) is doing a pretty good job of providing resources "in our spare time".

Alan

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:42:25 +0200 Mojca Miklavec wrote:

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On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Gerben Wierda wrote:

I like ConTeXt (still do, I liked its approach when I first encountered it). But the project is more the ongoing private tinkering of a small in-crowd (that communicates with some followers).

ConTeXt is managed a bit like a small group of researchers sharing a couple of complex and undocumented models/programs and tinkering with them as they go along. It’s an activity without formal design, but with a lot of trial-and-error/testing.

Given that status (and the fact that it has had that status for over a decennium), I don’t expect it to ever become a serious product that is (semi-)professionally managed. I prefer content over management every day, but something like this needs some minimal management. That requires both time (=money) and capabilities. Besides, the tinkering researchers may not be inclined to do that, they want to tinker.

Basically all the development in ConTeXt is voluntarily. Pro bono. Besides "tinkering", Hans still needs to earn some money from somewhere. I find it amazing how much time he already spends doing good things for

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