Re: [OT] Research into Generative Typesetting

From: "Christian" <metan0r@gmx.de>
To: "'mailing list for ConTeXt users'" <ntg-context@ntg.nl>
Subject: Re: [OT] Research into Generative Typesetting
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 18:37:04 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <003c01cc4956$c1e18820$45a49860$@gmx.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANenyVO5+gKc+bZGHRANv_boSj2Ha5PaGzEcnKh08CTV3JABuw@mail.gmail.com>

First of all, congratulations on your work!

> Hi everyone,
> 
> As some of you may know, in 2010 I attained a masters degree in New Media
> from the University of Amsterdam. The title of my thesis is "Grammars of
> Process: Agency, Collective Becoming, and the Organization of Software".
> 
> * [PDF](http://drippingdigital.com/gop/grammars_of_process.pdf)
> * [TeX](http://drippingdigital.com/gop/grammars_of_process.tex)
> * [HTML](http://drippingdigital.com/gop)
> * [thesis-

It's always interesting to see what others do and especially how they do it with context.
Really great that you are also linking to the source.

> One of the things this list might be excited about is the typography itself. I
> use many of Robert Bringhurst's suggestions, and I think the output is much
> the better for his advice.[^1] The HTML version was never totally finished (I'd
> prefer it to have JavaScript interaction and more Web-specific functionality).
> In fact, I had quite some plans for it, but as the deadline of the thesis
> approached, I necessarily poured my efforts more into content than
> presentation, and where presentation was concerned I was much more
> preoccupied with the Context version. All in all, I am happy with the thesis
> but I also know that it could use some work. If you have any feedback, please
> let me know.
> 
> [^1]: If anyone is interested, I'm thinking I might make a module that sets up
> the environment according to these conventions.

I like the idea of pre-made styles. I'm not shure if a module would provide the necessary flexibility, though. Maybe a style collection (with commented code and linked sample output PDFs) in the wiki would do the job. Like there is for the biochemistry textbook. From there users could just use it as a whole or adapt it to their needs.

From scrolling through the pages I must say that your design is very appealing. I would change some minor details, though (But I'm sure you've had your reasons :)
-Structure level 2 and 3 are not visually distinct (only by the numbers) see e.g. page 65. Maybe using italics for the 3rd level (like Bringhurst does it) would help to distinguish the titles.
-No spacing after paragraphs if you already use indent. (Afaik the consensus is "indent or space, not both")
-Indenting after a picture or line of code looks odd to me and can cause strange results. (See e.g. page 65. After "rm -rf /*" there is an indent in the middle of the sentence.
-There are some issues with the links in the bibliography (e.g. page 99). Also, bibliographies should be set flushleft imho, due to their brief nature they don't really provide enough words to allow automated paragraph construction. The result is a somewhat uneven feel due to big word spacing.

But who am I to grouch? My thesis currently consists of 5 pages xD so I should really not be pointing fingers here^^
Again, congratulations on your thesis.

All the best
Christian

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