% language=us % todo: no comma \usemodule[scite] \usemodule[article-basic] \usemodule[abbreviations-logos] \usemodule[math-goodriddance] \setuplayout[tight] \starttext \subject{Good riddance} We're done with math. After years of active development, Mikael and Hans have decided to quit working on math, and concentrate on \METAPOST\ and handing over to the next generation instead. We lost our user to the way more popular alternative (frozen in stone standards). Also, we had it with suboptimal math fonts, Unicode math not getting improved, MathML constantly being changed, browsers dealing with math differently every few years, math archives getting polluted with tons of useless tagged math. There are other motivations, like the European union imposing strict rules with respect to accessibility in educational content management systems, and Dutch schools trying to get rid of math in favor of simple calculus, if at all. This is why the next iteration of the engine will no longer have a math engine: MathLessTeX. Of course, in the beginning \MLTX\ will be compatible with \LMTX, because we owe that to the users and we need to prototype the new engine anyway. In order to get an idea of how we will get rid of the disturbing formulas, you can load the module: \starttyping \usemodule[math-goodriddance] \stoptyping Until becoming the default setting, the command \typ {\goodriddancemath} will bring you into \MLTX\ mode while \typ {\badriddancemath} will bring you back to the obsolete \LMTX\ mode. Like: \startbuffer \usemodule[math-goodriddance] \goodriddancemath Who wants to solve the equation \m {x + 1 = 4} or deal with the function \m {x \mapsto \root [3] {x}}, when we have AI around the corner to help us out with simple and silly things like the Pythagorean theorem: \m {a^2 + b^2 = c^2}, or even with more advanced math like geometric series: \m {\sum_{k = 0}^{+\infty} x^k = 1/(1 - x)}? We will not support complicated nonsense stuff like: \startplaceformula \startformula F__{1}____{2}(a,b;b;z) = (1 - z)^{-a} \stopformula \stopplaceformula When developing this Hans' Swedish improved a lot. {\language[sv] Den lilla del av befolkningen som handlar på IKEA och tittar på fåniga krimserier förstår kanske detta: \im {\sqrt {x + 1} = \sin(4 + y)}!} \stopbuffer \typebuffer[option=TEX] Which gives us the beautifully typeset: \startcolor[darkblue] \getbuffer \stopcolor We hope that the highly respected Swedish Academy will consider our prose in their upcoming evaluations. Our first submission to the leading \TEX\ journal was however rejected. We are currently on a major revision in order to satisfy the hopefully less critical \NTG\ Maps Editors. It is therefore our sincere hope that you will be able to read more on this topic in the near future. Currently only English and Swedish are supported. But our next research project, lead by two young promising linguists, will hopefully result in support for more languages. They will present preliminary results at the prestigious international BachoTeX conference in May 2024. \stoptext