On 27-4-2010 12:41, Scott Steele wrote:

Sidenote: If anyone has ever considered changing the name of the ConTeXt project, I'd like to support that. Name consistency is important, but there are two unnecessary problems that the current name creates.

the implication of a name change is quite big

The first is that the unusual capitalization and pronunciation are a barrier to new users. I've used macro packages in the TeX family for about four years now (though it seems much longer! I can't believe for how long I was putting out such ugly papers!), but I'm now consciously trying to remember to pronounce them as tecks, latecks, zeetecks, conteckst, etc, and to type them as Tex, Latex, Xetex, and Context (outside of this message/forum). The odd capitalization doen't win fans among people who appreciate typographic tradition, and the pronunciation requires that, instead of explaining first how powerful and useful these systems are, one explain the Greek chi and Donald Knuth. It doesn't give a good impression when one's first exposure to TeX involves being told one is wrong in how one pronounces a word that is less than 40 years old (The same goes for many open source projects). Further, if the name is brought up in conversation and piques the interest of a potential user, they will have a difficult time later searching for it when they type in contekt or conteckt.

well, nobody here cares much if you type ConTeXt as CONTEXT (small caps) or context (verbatim or whatever) concerning the pronouciation ... the x is not like in tex, it's just x (ks or whatever) ... we're not that picky and there are no rules other than that it should look right in your text if you refer to it

The second problem with the ConTeXt name is its shared spelling with context. When I google context and font, I get so many pages imploring me to consider the context of my document when choosing between Arial, Times New Roman, and Comic Sans. Many of the things I'll be searching for while using ConTeXt yield thousands of irrelevant pages because of how context can pop up in so many topics that share major keywords with the typesetting process..

well, googling on latex is also somewhat special ... as we now have context mkiv, you have a better change for a hit

Of course, I myself am in no position to advocate a name change, and if the two issues I listed are the price for having a cutting-edge typesetting system, then I'm still a pretty happy camper. But if any of the people who have actually worked really hard to put this together have ever thought about bringing up a branding change, here's my two pence.

changing a name will bring way to much work with it (changing web pages, manuals, filenames, lots of code, script names, habits etc) Hans ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com | www.pragma-pod.nl -----------------------------------------------------------------

Hello, my opinion is that ConTeXt including capitalization of some preselected letters is OK. Imagine - how new mode of work brings ConTeXt (and other TeX family) to someone who knows only or has been working with Word before! If it's to much to someone to remember correct "ConTeXt" writing (or to use \context macro - I never used it before, so I'm not sure whether such a macro exists; if it doesn't, it might be useful to define it; like \LaTeX in LaTeX), than it's probable one will not want to "see-through" the whole typesetting system (and more, ConTeXt may be a bit simpler for usage than LaTeX) and to learn how to typeset in this system (as he may be used to click an icon by mouse to get the required operation). Also - if someone sees "ConTeXt" written, he may ask why some letters are capitalized. Especially seeing "TeX" should be preserved as it demonstrates relation to "TeX"; first letter uppercase ("C") is common in (majority) of program names; and thus I'd keep the whole "ConTeXt" as I feel it as a "mark". Please take all above as my personal opinion; I don't like to touch anyone's point of view. Lukas