footnote and endnote markers aligned with the left margin of the main text

footnote and endnote markers aligned with the left margin of the main text

[Robert Zydenbos]

Sorry for all these footnote questions, but here's another one. I want to print the notes without the footnote marker jutting out into the margin, but flushed with the left margin of the main text.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Robert
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Re: footnote and endnote markers aligned with the left margin of the main text

[Pablo Rodriguez]

On 08/06/2018 11:59 PM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> Sorry for all these footnote questions, but here's another one. I
> want to print the notes without the footnote marker jutting out into
> the margin, but flushed with the left margin of the main text.
> 
> Any help will be highly appreciated.

Hi Robert,

although you don’t mention it, I guess you need it for MkII:

    \showframe
    \setuppapersize[A6, landscape]
    \setupnotedefinition[footnote][location=serried, distance=1em]
    \starttext
    a\footnote{This is a footnote.}

    b\endnote{This is an endnote.}

    \placenotes[endnote]
    \stoptext

I hope it helps,

Pablo
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation (was: footnote and endnote markers...)

[Robert Zydenbos]

> On 7. Aug 2018, at 17:54, Pablo Rodriguez <oinos@gmx.es> wrote:
> 
> On 08/06/2018 11:59 PM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
>> Sorry for all these footnote questions, […]
> 
> Hi Robert,
> 
> […]
> 
> I hope it helps,
> 
> Pablo

That is it. I have no idea why – but that is the solution.

(For all readers:)

ConTeXt is great. Let me make that clear right way. I think it's the future of TeX. I'm already doing things in ConTeXt that I dread trying to do in LaTeX or any other system. But (yes, of course there was a 'but' coming) the one thing that is missing, the one obstacle which I think exists for ConTeXt gaining wider currency, is really good documentation.

Take this last question of mine which Pablo solved: I had to put a certain parameter in  \setupnotedefinition  [footnote]. First I did it wrongly, putting it in \setupnote [footnote] (why? because the names of the values, like 'location', look so much alike). So what goes into \setupnotedefinition and what goes into \setupnote? How do I know? (How does Pablo know this? Maybe he can tell me off-list. :-) ) Many of the commands are not, or badly, documented in the otherwise useful Wiki. What are all the parameters that are recognized by the various commands, and just what do they mean? What are the default settings? ConTeXt looks like an object oriented programming language with inheritances, but it is unclear just what is inherited from where, and why.

I appreciate all the effort made by various people to provide documentation and demos. But I think the cause of ConTeXt would be greatly served if someone would bring out a hierarchic list of the ConTeXt commands with a brief description of what the commands and the parameters do and why they exist at all, so that the reader gets an idea of the structure of the whole system and the philosophy behind it (i.e., explaining why it is thus structured and why it works).

Once again: I think ConTeXt is great, and so is this forum, which is a huge help. I also realize ConTeXt is complex and that the great people behind it also have other things to do in life. But still: maybe the kind of documentation I propose would help to make things still a bit greater?

Robert


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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation (was: footnote and endnote markers...)

[Alan Braslau]

tex/context/interface/mkiv/i-context.pdf


On Wed, 8 Aug 2018 00:40:37 +0200
Robert Zydenbos <context@zydenbos.net> wrote:

> > On 7. Aug 2018, at 17:54, Pablo Rodriguez <oinos@gmx.es> wrote:
> > 
> > On 08/06/2018 11:59 PM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:  
> >> Sorry for all these footnote questions, […]  
> > 
> > Hi Robert,
> > 
> > […]
> > 
> > I hope it helps,
> > 
> > Pablo  
> 
> That is it. I have no idea why – but that is the solution.
> 
> (For all readers:)
> 
> ConTeXt is great. Let me make that clear right way. I think it's the future of TeX. I'm already doing things in ConTeXt that I dread trying to do in LaTeX or any other system. But (yes, of course there was a 'but' coming) the one thing that is missing, the one obstacle which I think exists for ConTeXt gaining wider currency, is really good documentation.
> 
> Take this last question of mine which Pablo solved: I had to put a certain parameter in  \setupnotedefinition  [footnote]. First I did it wrongly, putting it in \setupnote [footnote] (why? because the names of the values, like 'location', look so much alike). So what goes into \setupnotedefinition and what goes into \setupnote? How do I know? (How does Pablo know this? Maybe he can tell me off-list. :-) ) Many of the commands are not, or badly, documented in the otherwise useful Wiki. What are all the parameters that are recognized by the various commands, and just what do they mean? What are the default settings? ConTeXt looks like an object oriented programming language with inheritances, but it is unclear just what is inherited from where, and why.
> 
> I appreciate all the effort made by various people to provide documentation and demos. But I think the cause of ConTeXt would be greatly served if someone would bring out a hierarchic list of the ConTeXt commands with a brief description of what the commands and the parameters do and why they exist at all, so that the reader gets an idea of the structure of the whole system and the philosophy behind it (i.e., explaining why it is thus structured and why it works).
> 
> Once again: I think ConTeXt is great, and so is this forum, which is a huge help. I also realize ConTeXt is complex and that the great people behind it also have other things to do in life. But still: maybe the kind of documentation I propose would help to make things still a bit greater?
> 
> Robert
> 
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________________
> 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
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Pablo Rodriguez]

On 08/08/2018 12:40 AM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> That is it. I have no idea why – but that is the solution.

Dear Robert,

I will try to explain the reason of this (in my very limited
understanding of how ConTeXt works).

Notes in both MkII and MkII have two setup commands. One is for the
group of notes and the other is for each individual note.

This is why configuring notes might be tricky sometimes. Some options
belong to \setupnote and some to \setupnotedefinition (or \setupnotation
in MkIV).

> (For all readers:)

I hope I’m also included 😉.

Your example is a very special one. I mean, notes have two setup
commands and you are using MkII.

We already know you need support for Indic scripts (is Kannada the
language you need?).

I wonder whether we could do something to improve the situation in MkIV.

> ConTeXt is great. Let me make that clear right way. I think it's the
> future of TeX. I'm already doing things in ConTeXt that I dread
> trying to do in LaTeX or any other system. But (yes, of course there
> was a 'but' coming) the one thing that is missing, the one obstacle
> which I think exists for ConTeXt gaining wider currency, is really
> good documentation.

I moved from LaTeX to ConTeXt a decade ago. Back then, I also thought
that ConTeXt needed better documentation.

In the meanwhile, I realized that there are more things in heaven and
earth, that were dreamt in my philosophy. I mean, ConTeXt involves much
more than I thought.

Hans explained in the list why general documentation is not his task:
https://mailman.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2010/047500.html.

As an introduction to that, you can read my own take on the matter:
https://mailman.ntg.nl/pipermail/ntg-context/2017/090111.html.

In short, users have to write the general documentation about ConTeXt.
Or at least, we cannot expect (I’m not saying that you imply this) that
Hans develops both ConTeXt and LuaTeX, replies many questions in too
many mailing lists, writes technical documentation for both softwares
and also writes introductory manuals.

> Take this last question of mine which Pablo solved: I had to put a
> certain parameter in \setupnotedefinition [footnote]. First I did it
> wrongly, putting it in \setupnote [footnote] (why? because the names of
> the values, like 'location', look so much alike). So what goes into
> \setupnotedefinition and what goes into \setupnote? How do I know?

Welcome to the club. I mean, I also had my problems understanding why
notes were so complex to setup.

For MkIV (as Alan mentioned), you have
tex/texmf-context/tex/context/interface/mkiv/i-context.pdf.

For MkII, there seems to be no document for the English interface (at
least, in tex/texmf-context/tex/context/interface/mkii). I might be
wrong here, since I only used MkII for your notes.

> (How does Pablo know this? Maybe he can tell me off-list. :-) )

Who says I knew it? I simply searched in the source.

I know that \setupnotations[alternative=serried] is the command in MkIV.

So I grepped for "serried" in tex/texmf-context/tex/context/base/mkii/.

It took me a while to realize that strc-lnt.mkii had exactly the key I
was looking for (on line 109).

I must confess, if I hand’t find this line, I wouldn’t have been able to
give an answer from what I read in strc-not.mkii.

> Many of the commands are not, or badly, documented in the otherwise useful Wiki.

The wiki is written by users. I don’t know whether it is useful to add
MkII information to the wiki, but updating the wiki

> What are all the parameters that are recognized by the various
> commands, and just what do they mean? What are the default settings?

See above for that list.

> ConTeXt looks like an object oriented programming language with
> inheritances, but it is unclear just what is inherited from where,
> and why.

I don’t code, but I wonder whether this is more complex. ConTeXt MkII is
a macro package programmed in TeX (which is a typographical programming
language). ConTeXt MkIV adds Lua.

For a more complete description,
http://www.pragma-ade.com/general/manuals/what-is-context.pdf.

> I appreciate all the effort made by various people to provide
> documentation and demos. But I think the cause of ConTeXt would be
> greatly served if someone would bring out a hierarchic list of the
> ConTeXt commands with a brief description of what the commands and the
> parameters do and why they exist at all, so that the reader gets an idea
> of the structure of the whole system and the philosophy behind it (i.e.,
> explaining why it is thus structured and why it works).
> 
> Once again: I think ConTeXt is great, and so is this forum, which is
> a huge help. I also realize ConTeXt is complex and that the great
> people behind it also have other things to do in life. But still:
> maybe the kind of documentation I propose would help to make things
> still a bit greater?

The question for such a document would be how many users might benefit
from it.

I mean, ConTeXt is a huge task (support for Kannada is one of the many
features we would like to have implemented in it) and writing such a
document is not a minor task.

And the users? Well, I’m afraid that there are two kinds of them, when
related to this issue. One group of users may be able to understand such
a document, but they won’t need it, because they already have the
knowledge explained on it. The other group of users won’t be able to
understand such a document, because they lack have the required
background. (Not everyone is able to code 🙄.)

Let me finish with a personal experience. One of the most useful
features in ConTeXt is dealing directly with XML sources as input.

There is a document (written by Hans) explaining XML in ConTeXt:
tex/texmf-context/doc/context/documents/general/manuals/xml-mkiv.pdf.

Needless to say that I don’t understand every single feature explained
on it. And it took me a while to understand the very basics.

Does it mean it isn’t well written? The document is perfectly fine,
assuming that it is technical documentation. An introductory document to
xml-mkiv.pdf would be fine, but it should be written by another person
that Hans himself.

Just in case it might help,

Pablo
-- 
http://www.ousia.tk
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Hi,

I won’t reply to single points, thus I don’t quote previous mails.

I’m one of the few who work a lot on the wiki. But that means: if I find the time and if I find issues that I’m able to address.
Often it needs an hour of research to just explain one parameter properly. Don’t ask about all of them.

I’m fading out MkII documentation in the Wiki (I guess we somehow agreed on that).
I won’t delete it, but move it to the bottom, mark it as MkII/obsolete and never test it.

Indian scripts are the one thing that you can do with MkII but not with MkIV. And I know nothing about them and will probably never use them...

I’m also writing a (beginners) book on ConTeXt in German, and I find it really hard to decide what I should include. It can’t become a reference, a complete one is impossible anyway. You can’t do serious work with ConTeXt without using manuals, wiki, mailing list and the sources. There are just too many possibilities and different needs.

E.g. I wanted margin notes. Like footnotes, but in the margin. No problem if you want them at the bottom. Very hard if you want them like marginals, starting in the line of the marker... Is this common enough to include it in my book?

As a media designer, wo’s also working with InDesign, my focus is of course different from a scientist who just wants her thesis readable...

XML processing is an important "USP" for ConTeXt, but I never used it – I write my own XML-to-ConTeXt conversions in Python, since I’ll refine the ConTeXt code anyway.

etc. etc. yadda yadda

Greetlings, Hraban
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation (was: footnote and endnote markers...)

[Robert Zydenbos]

On 8. Aug 2018, at 00:54, Alan Braslau <braslau.list@comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> tex/context/interface/mkiv/i-context.pdf

Thank you! I didn’t know I already had this updated version of a document I’ve already been using. But however useful this document already is, it does illustrate some of my problems. For instance, in the entry ‘\setupnote’ I see:

…
indicator: yes no
distance: dimension
…

Surely this is fine for those who have been working on ConTeXt for years at a very low coding level. But I see this and ask myself: “indicator of what? distance to what?” etc. (Sometimes, when confronted with such information, I just play around a bit with changing parameters and see what happens: sometimes I discover the meanings, sometimes I don’t.)

‘\setupnote’ inherits from ‘\setupframed’. There one finds

…
profile = NAME
empty = yes no
…

and similar questions arise: “what kind of profile?”, “what is empty or not?” etc.

Unfortunately the source browser on the Wiki is out of order, otherwise that might have helped.

Suggestion / request: all the ConTeXt source files are, of course, read and processed in a particular order. It would surely be useful if someone could indicate where this chain begins. Anybody who would be interested in sorting out the workings of ConTeXt and writing a manual (no, I am not making any promises yet :-) ) could then trace how one command leads to another, another, another… and how the entire system is built up.

Robert

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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Pablo Rodriguez]

On 08/08/2018 03:30 PM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> On 8. Aug 2018, at 00:54, Alan Braslau wrote:
>>
>> tex/context/interface/mkiv/i-context.pdf
> 
> Thank you! I didn’t know I already had this updated version of a
> document I’ve already been using. But however useful this document
> already is, it does illustrate some of my problems. For instance, in
> the entry ‘\setupnote’ I see:
> 
> …
> indicator: yes no
> distance: dimension
> …
> 
> Surely this is fine for those who have been working on ConTeXt for
> years at a very low coding level.

Hi Robert,

please, don’t consider me among those who have been worked on ConTeXt at
a very low level (even for milliseconds).

> But I see this and ask myself: “indicator of what? distance to what?” etc.

Indicator that the note goes to the following page. But I don’t know
what "distance" in \setupnote does.

> (Sometimes, when confronted with such information, I just play
> around a bit with changing parameters and see what happens: sometimes
> I discover the meanings, sometimes I don’t.)

Lucky you, I have to play all the time to see what happens. I only learn
by doing.

> ‘\setupnote’ inherits from ‘\setupframed’. There one finds
> 
> …
> profile = NAME
> empty = yes no
> …
> 
> and similar questions arise: “what kind of profile?”, “what is empty
> or not?” etc.

The note zone is a frame. Empty or full is the text in that frame. In
that case (if this frame is empty), it removes the footnotes themselves.

I don’t know what are profiles. But I never needed to use them.

> Unfortunately the source browser on the Wiki is out of order,
> otherwise that might have helped.

http://source.contextgarden.net/ does work for me. But it is better that
you search your distribution, since the sources from your computer may
be the latest beta. In the garden, they are outdated.

> Suggestion / request: all the ConTeXt source files are, of course,
> read and processed in a particular order. It would surely be useful if
> someone could indicate where this chain begins. Anybody who would be
> interested in sorting out the workings of ConTeXt and writing a manual
> (no, I am not making any promises yet :-) ) could then trace how one
> command leads to another, another, another… and how the entire system is
> built up.

I wonder how many participants in this list might be able to do that
(Hans, Wolfgang and Taco excluded, of course).

No doubt that you are way smarter than me, but let me say a word on your
approach to ConTeXt.

Typography is a craftmanship. I don’t think it is totally different when
it is digital. Learning by doing is a good approach.

Of course, you may afford to learn from the source. But after all,
ConTeXt knowledge is relevant to typeset texts.

I might be totally missing your point here, but it seems to me that you
try to know what can be achieved in general with ConTeXt, even before to
learn how to use ConTeXt for your typesetting needs.

I hope it helps,

Pablo
-- 
http://www.ousia.tk
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Hans Hagen]

On 8/8/2018 3:30 PM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:

> profile = NAME
> empty = yes no
> …
> 
> and similar questions arise: “what kind of profile?”, “what is empty or not?” etc.

it's pretty safe to ignore keys like 'profile' (if you grep the 
documentation tree .... it's just an example of a potential optimization 
of the rendering which in practice no one will use because in the end it 
makes no sense .... more fun feature i guess)

> Unfortunately the source browser on the Wiki is out of order, otherwise that might have helped.
> 
> Suggestion / request: all the ConTeXt source files are, of course, read and processed in a particular order. It would surely be useful if someone could indicate where this chain begins. Anybody who would be interested in sorting out the workings of ConTeXt and writing a manual (no, I am not making any promises yet :-) ) could then trace how one command leads to another, another, another… and how the entire system is built up.
the order is in context.mkiv ... and is determined by functionaility 
building on top of other although there are some circular dependencies

Hans

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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Hans Hagen]

On 8/8/2018 8:18 AM, Pablo Rodriguez wrote:

> For MkIV (as Alan mentioned), you have
> tex/texmf-context/tex/context/interface/mkiv/i-context.pdf.

also have a look at the test suite ... many examples there

> I mean, ConTeXt is a huge task (support for Kannada is one of the many
> features we would like to have implemented in it) and writing such a
> document is not a minor task.

should mostly work (apart from one or two special cases which are in the 
pipeline)
  Hans

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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Alan Braslau]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2018 17:54:34 +0200
Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl> wrote:

> On 8/8/2018 3:30 PM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> 
> > profile = NAME
> > empty = yes no
> > …
> > 
> > and similar questions arise: “what kind of profile?”, “what is empty or not?” etc.  
> 
> it's pretty safe to ignore keys like 'profile' (if you grep the 
> documentation tree .... it's just an example of a potential optimization 
> of the rendering which in practice no one will use because in the end it 
> makes no sense .... more fun feature i guess)

The philosophy has been to use keys that are generally pretty self-explanatory, such as title=, color=, style=, etc.

Secondly, the commands try to use existing key names if they are relevant rather than adding new keys, and this sometimes leads to key names that at first sight might seem slightly awkward (where a synonym or close synonym might be slightly better). Also, sometimes the context requires a new key, such as foregroundcolor= and backgroundcolor=, when color= for example would be ambiguous.

Thirdly, many keys are inherited and passed-on to an included command.

Finally, unknown or unused keys are simply ignored.


This has the advantage that often, just trying the obvious simply works. 

To quote Poincaré:
\startquotation
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. It is enough that these things, though differing in matter, should be similar in form, to permit their being, so to speak, cast in the same mould. When the language has been carefully chosen, one is surprised to discover that all proofs developed for a given object, can be immediately applied to many new objects; there is nothing to be changed, not even the words, since all the names have become the same.
\stopquotation


Alan
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Pablo Rodriguez]

On 08/08/2018 08:50 AM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> [...]
> I’m also writing a (beginners) book on ConTeXt in German, and I find
> it really hard to decide what I should include. It can’t become a
> reference, a complete one is impossible anyway.

Hi Hraban,

your book will be an important reference, althought it won’t be “the
reference” (I doubt such a thing might exist).

> E.g. I wanted margin notes. Like footnotes, but in the margin. No
> problem if you want them at the bottom. Very hard if you want them like
> marginals, starting in the line of the marker... Is this common enough
> to include it in my book?

I would say this is too specific. But I would provide the explanation in
the wiki.

> As a media designer, who’s also working with InDesign, my focus is of
> course different from a scientist who just wants her thesis
> readable...

I think it is essential to have a wider range of explanations on how to
do things with ConTeXt (or even with computers, but this is a different
topic).

I’m not saying that other approaches are wrong. Just only not everyone
may understand things the same way.

Pablo
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Robert Zydenbos]

> On 8. Aug 2018, at 17:28, Pablo Rodriguez <oinos@gmx.es> wrote:
> 
> Hi Robert,
> 
> […] I might be totally missing your point here, but it seems to me that you
> try to know what can be achieved in general with ConTeXt, even before to
> learn how to use ConTeXt for your typesetting needs.

Not really. My requirements are rather dull and limited. I was attracted to ConTeXt for its simplicity in changing paper formats, in changing the formats of headings (section, subsection etc.), the ease with which index entries can be formatted, and above all for its beautiful table possibilities. The book I am working on is full of tables in various formats and lengths.

That (and the footnotes :-) ) covers just about all my typesetting needs. I had already prepared numerous smaller documents as practice before I started to process the book with ConTeXt, was delighted with the results, and so I thought that I could manage the book too (before the end of this month…).

Robert
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Pablo Rodriguez]

On 08/09/2018 02:17 PM, Robert Zydenbos wrote:
> [...]
> That (and the footnotes :-) ) covers just about all my typesetting
> needs. I had already prepared numerous smaller documents as practice
> before I started to process the book with ConTeXt, was delighted with
> the results, and so I thought that I could manage the book too (before
> the end of this month…).

In that case, I understand that you cannot move to MkIV for this book.

The end of the month won’t be tomorrow, so you are plenty of time 😁.

Pablo
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2018-08-08 um 18:31 schrieb Pablo Rodriguez <oinos@gmx.es>:

> Hi Hraban,
> your book will be an important reference, althought it won’t be “the
> reference” (I doubt such a thing might exist).

Thank you for the encouragement!

>> E.g. I wanted margin notes. Like footnotes, but in the margin. No
>> problem if you want them at the bottom. Very hard if you want them like
>> marginals, starting in the line of the marker... Is this common enough
>> to include it in my book?
> 
> I would say this is too specific. But I would provide the explanation in
> the wiki.

They are, even if not exactly in the same way as I’m using them, because this is influenced by other design choices (not even mine; I must adhere to the somewhat strange ideas of a designer).

Nearly everything that appears in my book is somewhere in the wiki, also since I often add things that were missing.

But sometimes the order matters or you can find things on the wiki only if you know where to look for what.


>> As a media designer, who’s also working with InDesign, my focus is of
>> course different from a scientist who just wants her thesis
>> readable...
> 
> I think it is essential to have a wider range of explanations on how to
> do things with ConTeXt (or even with computers, but this is a different
> topic).
> I’m not saying that other approaches are wrong. Just only not everyone
> may understand things the same way.

Of course. Everyone needs a different approach to things – I often experienced teachers who knew only one approach, e.g. in math, and couldn’t explain their stuff so that at least a few more students could understand the matter. Probably because they didn’t really understood themselves what they were teaching.

In engineering school I coached a few colleagues who had difficulties with math, and I like to remember the one (who "only" had a CSE, Hauptschulabschluss, and used to work as a printer) who looked astonished at me in one session and said "It’s really that simple!?", when I managed to find an approach to functions that worked for him. :)

And I still could smash my primary school teacher: When I asked "what happens if we subtract a bigger number from a smaller?", she answered "that’s not possible". :(
She could have easily told me "you will learn that later" or just show me at the thermometer "look, we will get below zero"...
But noo, better keep children dumb, otherwise they could outwit you.

Sorry for ranting ;)


Greetlings, Hraban
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Hans Hagen]

On 8/10/2018 5:50 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:

> And I still could smash my primary school teacher: When I asked "what happens if we subtract a bigger number from a smaller?", she answered "that’s not possible". :(
> She could have easily told me "you will learn that later" or just show me at the thermometer "look, we will get below zero"...
> But noo, better keep children dumb, otherwise they could outwit you.
> 
> Sorry for ranting ;)
but with your thermometer example young Alan (who watches discovery 
channel on a daily basis and later becomes a low temperature expert) 
would outwit you as he would challenge you to subtract 300 from zero

Hans

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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2018-08-10 um 18:38 schrieb Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl>:

> On 8/10/2018 5:50 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> 
>> And I still could smash my primary school teacher: When I asked "what happens if we subtract a bigger number from a smaller?", she answered "that’s not possible". :(
>> She could have easily told me "you will learn that later" or just show me at the thermometer "look, we will get below zero"...
>> But noo, better keep children dumb, otherwise they could outwit you.
>> Sorry for ranting ;)
> but with your thermometer example young Alan (who watches discovery channel on a daily basis and later becomes a low temperature expert) would outwit you as he would challenge you to subtract 300 from zero

There are a lot of people who can outwit my easily. So what?

Adult Alan won’t need my book, because he can understand the source code of ConTeXt.

Greetlings, Hraban

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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Alan Braslau]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2018 18:38:19 +0200
Hans Hagen <j.hagen@xs4all.nl> wrote:

> On 8/10/2018 5:50 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> 
> > And I still could smash my primary school teacher: When I asked "what happens if we subtract a bigger number from a smaller?", she answered "that’s not possible". :(
> > She could have easily told me "you will learn that later" or just show me at the thermometer "look, we will get below zero"...
> > But noo, better keep children dumb, otherwise they could outwit you.
> > 
> > Sorry for ranting ;)
> but with your thermometer example young Alan (who watches discovery 
> channel on a daily basis and later becomes a low temperature expert) 
> would outwit you as he would challenge you to subtract 300 from zero

No, - 273.15 ;-)

Alan
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Re: general suggestion for ConTeXt documentation

[Jan U. Hasecke]

Hi Hraban,

On 08.08.2018 08:50, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> I’m also writing a (beginners) book on ConTeXt in German, and I find it really hard to decide what I should include. It can’t become a reference, a complete one is impossible anyway. You can’t do serious work with ConTeXt without using manuals, wiki, mailing list and the sources. There are just too many possibilities and different needs.

if I can be of any help, let me know.

I wrote books about the Python Documentation System Sphinx and Pandoc.

And I would really love to see a beginners book of ConTeXt in German.

juh

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