A philosophical one:Who's behind ConTeXt?

A philosophical one:Who's behind ConTeXt?

[Vittorio]

I produce many school reports (many pictures, big fonts 14pt up) to
help my daughters, reports and letters for my work.

I'd like to start using ConTeXt instead of LaTeX but there's
something in a corner of my mind saying 'Be Careful! Keep Calm'.

Yes, for my use ConTeXt looks more modern, more logical, and simpler
to deal with than its older competitor but LaTeX has and will have a
huge group of contributors/supporters around the world that sounds
like a 'life warranty'.By contrast, ConTeXt seems to me too much tied
and double-tied to HANS HAGEN only or, in any case, to a very small
group of contributors.

Is that hunch of mine true?

And what about 'stability' of ConTeXt? I've read that sometimes it is
unstable.

Ciao
Vittorio

Re: A philosophical one:Who's behind ConTeXt?

[Idris S Hamid]

> Yes, for my use ConTeXt looks more modern, more logical, and simpler
> to deal with than its older competitor but LaTeX has and will have a
> huge group of contributors/supporters around the world that sounds
> like a 'life warranty'.By contrast, ConTeXt seems to me too much tied
> and double-tied to HANS HAGEN only or, in any case, to a very small
> group of contributors.

Have you read

http://www.ntg.nl/maps/pdf/20_42.pdf ?

> And what about 'stability' of ConTeXt? I've read that sometimes it is
> unstable.

I think that mainly applies to new and/or experimental features but I'd better  
let someone else answer that as I am still very much a new user:-)

Best wishes
Idris

-- 
Dr. Idris S Hamid
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80526

Re: A philosophical one:Who's behind ConTeXt?

[Hans Hagen]

At 01:37 PM 6/13/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>I produce many school reports (many pictures, big fonts 14pt up) to
>help my daughters, reports and letters for my work.
>
>I'd like to start using ConTeXt instead of LaTeX but there's
>something in a corner of my mind saying 'Be Careful! Keep Calm'.
>
>Yes, for my use ConTeXt looks more modern, more logical, and simpler
>to deal with than its older competitor but LaTeX has and will have a
>huge group of contributors/supporters around the world that sounds
>like a 'life warranty'.By contrast, ConTeXt seems to me too much tied
>and double-tied to HANS HAGEN only or, in any case, to a very small
>group of contributors.
>
>Is that hunch of mine true?
>
>And what about 'stability' of ConTeXt? I've read that sometimes it is
>unstable.

The instability mainly concerns new (or undocumented) features.

With regards to 'warranty', an installed base (i.e. users) is more or less 
a guarantee. We currently implement workflows for publishers where context 
is the core typesetting engine, so maybe that's a comfortable idea.

With regards to the code: in the end there will be many mall modules making 
up the whole and these can be swapped in or out at will (and replaced by 
whoever wants to do so).

Hans
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                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
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                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
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Re: A philosophical one:Who's behind ConTeXt?

[Hans Hagen]

At 06:29 PM 6/13/2002 +0200, Slawek Zak wrote:
>On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 04:56:35PM +0200, Hans Hagen wrote:
> > With regards to the code: in the end there will be many mall modules 
> making
> > up the whole and these can be swapped in or out at will (and replaced by
> > whoever wants to do so).
>
>That's a pretty remote perspective, I guess? ;) What about making
>ConTeXt's source all-english? It would be so much easier to read and
>grasp it! Learning Dutch could be fun, but ... ;)

that's part of the game, whenever i update something (or implement 
something new) i do it in english; convertign keywords (low level) will be 
done at a less busy moment (since i then also need to changeother local 
files).

hans

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE | pragma@wxs.nl
                       Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
  tel: +31 (0)38 477 53 69 | fax: +31 (0)38 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
                        information: http://www.pragma-ade.com/roadmap.pdf
                     documentation: http://www.pragma-ade.com/showcase.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------