On 3-4-2010 11:23, Michael Saunders wrote:
That's the feeling I'm getting. I'm finding it hard to do a lot of basic things in Context. Maybe Context can do them and maybe it can't, but there is no way to find out. If the claims that Context is better really aren't empty, I would expect a lot of people to switch, but I imagine 99% of them are in the same boat I'm in---trying to switch and finding it practically impossible. I imagine many people try, spend a week trying to get it to work and then give up and go back to LaTeX.
why should users switch .. if something works ok there need to be good reasons
Mojca's point, that Context is commercial, may be the key: it can be free in name only but if the means of using it are kept secret, it's only of benefit to Pragma. (Hans himself mentioned earlier that there are many undocumented options for use in-house only that outsiders see in the code and wonder about.)
context being commercial? it's costing us more than it brings in and always had .. and as all code is public and most of the things that can be done are no secret (e.g. showed at user group meetings) the snippets of code that i referred to are simply too obscure to document (and i tend to remove them) .. actually some experimental code is being used and might evolve now concerning documentation, you should explain one thing: - a working day has 8 hours - add to that weekends and evenings - consider that writing code takes time - and answering mails too - and visiting user group meetings and doing talks there - and writing some miminal documentation (or history docs or articles) it looks to me that you're one of the few who either cannot imagine how much time i (and taco and others) spent on something free and still have some time left for our normal job as wel as some social time but maybe i should settle on me being too imperfect and inefficient and needing 16 hours instead of 8 which leaves me no time for writing manuals (which would be bad anyway)
Taco's objection that no one helps with the community project to update the reference manual is reasonable, but also predictable: strangers cannot simply wander in and write the book. The knowledge is in Hans's head (and maybe a few others), and only they can communicate it. It's evident that they either can't or won't.
if the knowledge is in my head, how come that wolfgang can answer most questions (and if he couldn't we'd have a real problem as at least i have not more time)
I really would like to see the quality of computer typesetting advance, and I was hopeful at hearing about Luatex/Context. I'd love to see Context produce better output more easily than LaTeX, but so far I'm putting a lot of effort into it to get some very disappointing results. One might place some hope in a future (21st c.?) LaTeX 3 based on Luatex, but that would depend on Hans explaining how Luatex works, and it seems doubtful that would ever happen.
well, it has been expressed several times (also at user group meetings) that latex will not use luatex or at least not the lua in tex ... all efforts with respect to that are personal initiatives
For now I'm sticking with Context because I still hope there might be some value in it, but it's hard to find.
ok Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------