Re: beginner's questions

["Denis B. Roegel" <Denis.Roegel@loria.fr>]

`siepo@client44-3.kabelA.oprit.rug.nl' wrote
>   
>   On 11 Nov, Berend de Boer wrote:
>   > siepo@client44-3.kabelA.oprit.rug.nl wrote:
>   > 
>   >> A dissenting voice: I don't think Context is easier than LaTeX. 
>   > 
>   > Hai Siep,
>   > 
>   > How many years of LaTeX experience do you have?
>   
>   In my first year with LaTeX, I designed a custom stylefile, even without
>   the benefit of the LaTeX Companion.
>   
>   >> One
>   >> stumbling block is the documentation - there is a lot of it, but I
>   >> find it hard to find my way around in it -
>   > 
>   > I can't believe the latex docs are better. And consistency across the
>   > (docs of the) many packages??

I am certainly not the right person to comment on this,
as I have 9 years of experience with tex (& latex, mf, etc.),
6 or 7 years with mpost, and very little with context (of which I have
only the knowledge found in the metafun manual), but the main thing
that annoyed me was the sometimes lack of clear diagnostic
in case of errors (either in my installation or in what I typed,
see the series of messages I sent recently). This of course is
made more difficult by the fact that context is evolving,
since one can make a mistake when updating his/her installation.
But I am confident many or all of these problems will vanish
eventually.

It must also be said that the quality of context is quite
stunning, given that it is used by a very small number of (free) people.
But there may be many people who use it through pragma, and I guess
they helped shape context into what it has become. And the fact
that people are paid for it has certainly something to do with it.

Denis Roegel