The ConTeXt book

Michael Saunders

3 Apr 2010 3 Apr '10

11:23 a.m.

"This is the project which has only 5 or 6 users. Who actually uses it? Use LaTeX!" 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. 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.) 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. 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. For now I'm sticking with Context because I still hope there might be some value in it, but it's hard to find.

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Patrick Gundlach

3 Apr 3 Apr

11:41 a.m.

Hi Michael,

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based on Luatex, but that would depend on Hans explaining how Luatex works

LuaTeX is documented very thoroughly. The manual is 180 pages and as far as I can see it mentions and describes every aspect of the API. I am not saying that from the reference manual alone I understand every detail (every now and then I need to ask a question on the mailinglist), but that is a different subject as TeX itself is rather complex (you need knowledge about glue and boxes for example). Patrick

Peter Münster

2:38 p.m.

On Sat, Apr 03 2010, Patrick Gundlach wrote:

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LuaTeX is documented very thoroughly. The manual is 180 pages and as far as I can see it mentions and describes every aspect of the API.

Moreover it seems that Taco keeps it always in sync with the code! Cheers, Peter -- Contact information: http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/

Andreas Schneider

12:54 p.m.

Michael Saunders wrote:

...

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.)

If you spend some time on the mailing list your probably make the contrary observation. There are countless cases where Hans, Taco or Wolfgang implement some features to fulfill a request of a user. Nearly every time I had a question/problem, a solution came up within _hours_. That's quite impressive imho. That also means that many solutions can be found by searching the mailing list archives ... not few things are also mentioned in the Wiki. And for the very basic problems, the "old" manuals still mostly apply. I do think that it would be pretty awesome to have a central up-to-date documentation which I could also recommend to other people I try to convince to use ConTeXt instead of Word, Writer or LaTeX. But at least for my personal needs I find answers to most of my questions already. Best Regards, Andreas.

Gour

2:13 p.m.

On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 12:54:18 +0200

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"Andreas" == Andreas Schneider wrote:

Hello Andreas, Andreas> If you spend some time on the mailing list your probably make Andreas> the contrary observation. There are countless cases where Andreas> Hans, Taco or Wolfgang implement some features to fulfill a Andreas> request of a user. Nearly every time I had a question/problem, Andreas> a solution came up within _hours_. That's quite impressive Andreas> imho. That also means that many solutions can be found by Andreas> searching the mailing list archives ... not few things are Andreas> also mentioned in the Wiki. And for the very basic problems, Andreas> the "old" manuals still mostly apply. Thank you for your post. You are touching one of the very important aspects of ConTeXt which lot of people here do not or does not want to understand... I'm not the one who is living typography or for whom typesetting and/or writing books is bread & butter...When I did two books some years ago I was not confident I could make it due to the lack of up-to-date docs. I picked two LaTeX books (Kopka/Daly & Companion) which helped me to publish the books using LaTeX/LyX and I helped the project by sending donation as well as put credit in the book for all the tools which I used. (These days I'm TUG member and give some modest donation for TeX Gyre and LuaTeX projects.) So, the main variable in equation here is: TIME! I simply do not have time to research mailing lists, wikis etc. to find about the 'application', but prefer to buy the book (I'm book guy accustomed to learn from books) and read it afk to learn basic things. Then, I might get into mailing list, IRC, forums etc. when faced with very specific problems. That's the reason, I believe, why many people are buying books - to quickly get 'in action' as Manning publishers explain their book series. However, it might be that ConTeXt prefer to always stay niche-product and to, as Haskellers say: "Avoid success at all costs.” :-) Sincerely, Gour -- Gour | Hlapicina, Croatia | GPG key: F96FF5F6 ----------------------------------------------------------------

Alain Delmotte

2:45 p.m.

Hi! Gour a écrit : 03/04 13:42

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Taco> The availability of ConTeXt books will not automatically create Taco> more users (nor even automatically create readers, for that Taco> matter).

Hmm, interesting...

If even you think that ConTeXt books are not important (to bring new users), then no wonder we do not have even a single one...

I think Taco didn't say *at all* that books are not important; he just said that the books will not automatically increase the use. 03/04 14:13

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However, it might be that ConTeXt prefer to always stay niche-product and to, as Haskellers say: "Avoid success at all costs.” :-)

Do you know many software in development for which there are plenty of books. Further the accusation of somes other that Hans is keeping information for his work and not documenting it is shocking me. Hans said that he did develop ConTeXt for *his* work and then opened it to others to benefit. And Hans is working for the ConTeXt users free and would prefer, I think, to use his "secret!!?" tools and go on for his real work. I also regret that the documentation is not complete and updated for mkiv, but mkiv is still in development even if it is operational (but Hans suggest to use mkii for professional work). Many people here who complain about documentation, also quickly say that they do not have time to write the asked for book: they have other things on the fire!! just... like Hans who is developing ConTeXt and do not have time writing documentation. What is more important: having a very good program and wait for its documentation, or a very good documentation and a buggy program??? Thanks to those who develop ConTeXt and answer the questions. Have a good Eastern time Alain

Gour

2:56 p.m.

On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:45:51 +0200

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"Alain" == Alain Delmotte wrote:

Alain> I think Taco didn't say *at all* that books are not important; Alain> he just said that the books will not automatically increase the Alain> use. So you think that having book(s) will leave the number of the ConText users on the same level or maybe decrease it? Alain> What is more important: having a very good program and wait for Alain> its documentation, or a very good documentation and a buggy Alain> program??? (user) docs brings new users... (dev) docs brings new devs... (some) users become devs... (more) devs increases bus-factor... Sincerely, Gour -- Gour | Hlapicina, Croatia | GPG key: F96FF5F6 ----------------------------------------------------------------

Alain Delmotte

4:03 p.m.

Hi! Gour a écrit :

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On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:45:51 +0200

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> "Alain" == Alain Delmotte wrote: >

Alain> I think Taco didn't say *at all* that books are not important; Alain> he just said that the books will not automatically increase the Alain> use.

So you think that having book(s) will leave the number of the ConText users on the same level or maybe decrease it?

Can you read a sentence in full and not always cut out what doesn't interest you, or should I mark every word as important? I did write "will not automatically", I didn't say that books will leave the number of users on the same level.

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Alain> What is more important: having a very good program and wait for Alain> its documentation, or a very good documentation and a buggy Alain> program???

(user) docs brings new users... (dev) docs brings new devs... (some) users become devs... (more) devs increases bus-factor...

Sure, once you have a full operational system! (user) docs brings new users.... who get problems from bugs or unfinished program... users drop out! No more devs, no more need for books!! And the publishers will thing like this! Alain

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Sincerely, Gour

------------------------------------------------------------------------

___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

Gour

9:27 p.m.

On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:03:34 +0200

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"Alain" == Alain Delmotte wrote:

Alain> Can you read a sentence in full and not always cut out what Alain> doesn't interest you, or should I mark every word as important? Excuse me...it's my mistake...I had to enclose my sentence in: \startirony ... \endirony :-) Sincerely, Gour -- Gour | Hlapicina, Croatia | GPG key: F96FF5F6 ----------------------------------------------------------------

Alain Delmotte

9:48 p.m.

Gour a écrit :

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On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:03:34 +0200

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> "Alain" == Alain Delmotte wrote: >

Alain> Can you read a sentence in full and not always cut out what Alain> doesn't interest you, or should I mark every word as important?

Excuse me...it's my mistake...I had to enclose my sentence in:

\startirony ... \endirony

:-)

And I get an error for a \flameoff (without corresponding \flameon) Regards, Alain

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Sincerely, Gour

------------------------------------------------------------------------

___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________

Hans Hagen

6 p.m.

On 3-4-2010 2:56, Gour wrote:

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On Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:45:51 +0200

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> "Alain" == Alain Delmotte wrote:

Alain> I think Taco didn't say *at all* that books are not important; Alain> he just said that the books will not automatically increase the Alain> use.

So you think that having book(s) will leave the number of the ConText users on the same level or maybe decrease it?

i think it's hard to draw conclusions .. for instance if someone has to use tex once for a thesis he counts as user but will never use tex again probably i've seen my share of tex users and am pretty convinced that many users on this list are non standard in the sense that they like to make their own look and feel (contrary to using say latex for a one shot document in a prescribed style) .. in that sense i think that the crowd here is not the majority of tex users but definitely using it in advanced ways ... just look at mkiv ... i'm really pleased that so many use it already which helps us a lot with developing luatex as well 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------

Hans Hagen

2:24 p.m.

On 3-4-2010 12:54, Andreas Schneider wrote:

...

Michael Saunders wrote:

...
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.)

If you spend some time on the mailing list your probably make the contrary observation. There are countless cases where Hans, Taco or Wolfgang implement some features to fulfill a request of a user. Nearly every time I had a question/problem, a solution came up within _hours_. That's quite impressive imho. That also means that many solutions can be found by searching the mailing list archives ... not few things are also mentioned in the Wiki. And for the very basic problems, the "old" manuals still mostly apply.

I do think that it would be pretty awesome to have a central up-to-date documentation which I could also recommend to other people I try to convince to use ConTeXt instead of Word, Writer or LaTeX. But at least for my personal needs I find answers to most of my questions already.

it could be a user effort to document the new stuff posted on the list 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------

Taco Hoekwater

1:20 p.m.

Michael Saunders wrote:

...

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.

Some feedback on the quality other than 'it sucks' would have helped enormously.

Taco Hoekwater

1:45 p.m.

Taco Hoekwater wrote:

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Michael Saunders wrote:

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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.

Some feedback on the quality other than 'it sucks' would have helped enormously.

I'll elaborate a bit (excuse me for replying to myself). Over the past four years, it has been next to impossible to get people interested in the reference manual project, not even for something as simple as reading the rewritten chapters and telling me what they think about it. Still, at the same time, complaints about the quality of the documentation have been a constant recurrence on the mailing list. I know the argument that beginners do not understand the source well enough to write a manual themselves is valid. But it is equally true that a person that *does* know the source enough to write the manual is not the correct person to proofread it. The near total lack of feedback had led me to believe that most complainers are in it just for the complaining. This is extremely demotivating, and so I have almost given up on doing documentation at all. I mean, what's the point if nobody really cares? There are many more interesting things to do in life than work for weeks on end on revising chapters nobody appears willing to read anyway. Best wishes, Taco

Vedran Miletić

2:09 p.m.

2010/4/3 Taco Hoekwater :

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Over the past four years, it has been next to impossible to get people interested in the reference manual project, not even for something as simple as reading the rewritten chapters and telling me what they think about it. Still, at the same time, complaints about the quality of the documentation have been a constant recurrence on the mailing list.

I know the argument that beginners do not understand the source well enough to write a manual themselves is valid. But it is equally true that a person that *does* know the source enough to write the manual is not the correct person to proofread it.

The near total lack of feedback had led me to believe that most complainers are in it just for the complaining. This is extremely demotivating, and so I have almost given up on doing documentation at all. I mean, what's the point if nobody really cares? There are many more interesting things to do in life than work for weeks on end on revising chapters nobody appears willing to read anyway.

I'm more than willing to proofread it and offer suggestions, and I'm pretty certain I'm not the only one. Regards, -- Vedran Miletić

Graham Douglas

2:55 p.m.

Taco wrote: ============== Over the past four years, it has been next to impossible to get people interested in the reference manual project, not even for something as simple as reading the rewritten chapters and telling me what they think about it. Still, at the same time, complaints about the quality of the documentation have been a constant recurrence on the mailing list. I know the argument that beginners do not understand the source well enough to write a manual themselves is valid. But it is equally true that a person that *does* know the source enough to write the manual is not the correct person to proofread it. The near total lack of feedback had led me to believe that most complainers are in it just for the complaining. This is extremely demotivating, and so I have almost given up on doing documentation at all. I mean, what's the point if nobody really cares? There are many more interesting things to do in life than work for weeks on end on revising chapters nobody appears willing to read anyway. Best wishes, Taco ==================== Hi Taco Just a few words of encouragement :-) You can be assured that the reference manual is definitely not going unused. In my current quest to learn LuaTeX I refer to it almost daily. Just for the record, I work in scientific publishing but my interest in LuaTeX is purely and completely personal and not at all related to my "day job". I too would be willing to help "improve" the manual, especially to help clarify issues which may be difficult for a beginner (like me!) to understand. I have some ideas for additional material which could help to link or bridge a number of key topics/concepts in order to better understand the "architecture" of LuaTeX. Sort of "glue material". You are absolutely right to say that, as the person writing the code, it is extremely difficult to be the one solely responsible for preparing the manual. Apart from anything, with such a pround and in-depth knowledge of the innards of TeX it must be extremely difficult for you to step back and take the perspective of someone who is just stating out. And, frankly, writing documentation of any sort can be pretty dull. Furthermore, I think that we'd all benefit from you spending most of your time doing what you do best: cutting the code! As someone very new to LuaTeX, I also want to thank you again for the tremendous work you are doing. Do please contact me by personal e-mail to discuss the above in more detail, should you wish to do so. Warm wishes Graham

Peter Münster

2:35 p.m.

On Sat, Apr 03 2010, Michael Saunders wrote:

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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.

Could you please provide a typical example?

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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 do you? Personal experience: in 2003 I switched from LaTeX to ConTeXt, nearly from one day to the other, and since then without ever missing LaTeX (ok, only very rarely ... ;) Cheers, Peter -- Contact information: http://pmrb.free.fr/contact/

Hans Hagen

2:41 p.m.

On 3-4-2010 11:23, Michael Saunders wrote:

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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)

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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.

Andrea Valle

2:55 p.m.

the 2 cents of a lurker :)

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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)

Actually, I don't need so much documentation (well, it's never enough indeed), I'd say I need a tutorial to be able to know how to get documentation. Maybe how to browse code source. This is just my experience, for what it worth: I always find very good recipes, and fast help by this wonderful list on specific topics, but I don't feel to be able to really generalize my knowledge. It's easy to have good stuff with ConTeXt, much more complicated to make it do what you want. Maybe I just need some good lectures I missed. So maybe I need pointers. Best and thanks for your work -a- -------------------------------------------------- Andrea Valle -------------------------------------------------- CIRMA - DAMS Università degli Studi di Torino --> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/ --> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle --> http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderaalle/ --> http://www.youtube.com/user/vanderaalle --> andrea.valle@unito.it -------------------------------------------------- " This is a very complicated case, Maude. You know, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous." (Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski)

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Alain Delmotte
Andrea Valle
Andreas Schneider
Gour
Graham Douglas
Hans Hagen
Michael Saunders
Patrick Gundlach
Peter Münster
Taco Hoekwater
Vedran Miletić

The ConTeXt book

Michael Saunders

Alain Delmotte

Alain Delmotte

Alain Delmotte

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