Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Paulo Ney de Souza]

This is one of the sore points of ConTeXt and of the development
effort. People at Pragma are willing to show off but not willing
to share code and teach by example... contrary to most opensource
projects I have seen.

There is another gallery of examples without source for some pdfTeX
material at:

	http://www.tug.org/applications/pdftex/index.html

and as you can see there is a large intersection with the some of
the familiar developers at Pragma.

Maybe it is time for us to start an group to reverse-engineer some
of these files and post them into a public archive.

Paulo Ney de Souza

    >From ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl  Sun Aug  1 19:55:39 2004
    >From: skhilji@tampabay.rr.com
    >Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
    >To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
    >
    >I'd like to see the sources of all the PDF files available at pragma-ade.  Its much easier to look at examples and learn from it than to ask for complete documentation.
    >
    >Salman
    >
    >
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Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hello, 

> This is one of the sore points of ConTeXt and of the development
> effort. People at Pragma are willing to show off but not willing
> to share code and teach by example... contrary to most opensource
> projects I have seen.

Oh come on, this is completely crap. The people at PRAGMA (i.e. Hans)
share ConTeXt, wich is the holy grail that PRAGMA is based on
(besides the knowledge). It is such a generous gift to the community.
Please think about if you write stuff like that.

You are right, that not all (only few) manuals are available in .tex
format. See pdftex manual and the magazines. Putting source
code online needs time, a lot of time. Source code needs to get
documented. And I don't know Hans very well, but I'd guess that his
day only has 24h.

There are already some styles in the ConTeXt wiki. And there are
styles that come with the distribution. 

> Maybe it is time for us to start an group to reverse-engineer some
> of these files and post them into a public archive.

Why reverse-engineer? Just cook up the style you want. If you have
questions doing this, ask on the ConTeXt list. If you are ready, put
the style onto the Wiki. The styles at pragma are very good, but
definitely not the only way to go. Making a good style is not
copy/paste. It is a matter of experience. Experience is something you
have to gain yourself.

And yes, it is time for us to put examples online. But the ConTeXt
community is still rather small. So there won't be many results in a
short time.


Paulo,

You can do the first step. Go to the wiki, edit a page that states
your questions regarding style development. Put a table of contents
or something similar there, which steps you would like to see, which
things you would like to have explained and so on. After that "we"
(the more experienced ConTeXt users) can fill in the gaps. And
finally we all have a small manual on style design. This is much
better than being so aggressive on the unwillingness to share source.


Patrick

(btw: looking for some beta testers for a new service)

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List archive: http://archive.contextgarden.net

Re: Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Paulo Ney de Souza]

    >From ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl  Mon Aug  2 08:46:53 2004
    >From: "Patrick Gundlach" <patrick@gundla.ch>
    >To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
    >Subject: [NTG-context] Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
    >
    >Oh come on, this is completely crap. The people at PRAGMA (i.e. Hans)
    >share ConTeXt, wich is the holy grail that PRAGMA is based on
    >(besides the knowledge). It is such a generous gift to the community.
    >Please think about if you write stuff like that.

I realize better that you do Hans contibutions to the Open Source community
and I never complained about the sharing of ConTeXt, which is indeed the 
best typesetting system I have seen. You are taking my comment into a 
completely different context, pun not intended!

    >You are right, that not all (only few) manuals are available in .tex
    >format. See pdftex manual and the magazines. Putting source
    >code online needs time, a lot of time. Source code needs to get
    >documented. And I don't know Hans very well, but I'd guess that his
    >day only has 24h.
    >
    >There are already some styles in the ConTeXt wiki. And there are
    >styles that come with the distribution. 

The discussion is not about styles, it is about examples and how-to.

    >Why reverse-engineer? Just cook up the style you want. If you have
    >questions doing this, ask on the ConTeXt list. If you are ready, put
    >the style onto the Wiki. The styles at pragma are very good, but
    >definitely not the only way to go. Making a good style is not
    >copy/paste. It is a matter of experience. Experience is something you
    >have to gain yourself.

We are not talking about experience and or copy/paste, if you are assuming 
that I don't have the experience or that the guy that posted the initial
message wants to copy and paste, again you are on the wrong track.

    >And yes, it is time for us to put examples online. But the ConTeXt
    >community is still rather small. So there won't be many results in a
    >short time.

I certainly will welcome the day we have a minimal how-to posted in there.

    >You can do the first step. Go to the wiki, edit a page that states
    >your questions regarding style development. Put a table of contents
    >or something similar there, which steps you would like to see, which
    >things you would like to have explained and so on. After that "we"
    >(the more experienced ConTeXt users) can fill in the gaps. And
    >finally we all have a small manual on style design. This is much
    >better than being so aggressive on the unwillingness to share source.
    >
    >Patrick

I'll give it a try, the wiki is certainly the way to go ...

Paulo Ney

Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Patrick Gundlach]

Hello again,

>     >Oh come on, this is completely crap. The people at PRAGMA (i.e. Hans)
>     >share ConTeXt, wich is the holy grail that PRAGMA is based on
>     >(besides the knowledge). It is such a generous gift to the community.
>     >Please think about if you write stuff like that.
>
> I realize better that you do Hans contibutions to the Open Source community
> and I never complained about the sharing of ConTeXt, which is indeed the 
> best typesetting system I have seen. You are taking my comment into a 
> completely different context, pun not intended!

No, actually I am not. You wrote "People at Pragma are willing to show
off but not willing to share code and teach by example..." 

Willing to show off -> that is right. The talks etc. are really
   impressive (but more than that).
"but not willing to share code" -> this is, as you know, mostly
   wrong. How many thousands of lines do they share? How many lines
   do you share?
"...and teach by example". There *are* a few examples online. Did you
   look at the magazines? Did you look at the pdftex manual? 

I just guess you did not find them. (Or know about.) 

>     >There are already some styles in the ConTeXt wiki. And there are
>     >styles that come with the distribution. 
>
> The discussion is not about styles, it is about examples and how-to.

Styles are examples. Did you have a look? And yes, howtos are missing. 


[...]

> We are not talking about experience and or copy/paste, if you are assuming 
> that I don't have the experience or that the guy that posted the initial
> message wants to copy and paste, again you are on the wrong track.

You were talking about reverse engeneering. What is wrong about
making up your own style and publish it? You obviously lack experience
(which is not ment negative) (or are too unwilling to do so) in style
design with ConTeXt, or you would do the first step and publish *your*
styles somewhere, together with sources. Then you will find out that
publishing source code is not always trivial.

So my conclusion is something like this: write down your questions
you have and we can fill in the gap. As long as people are only
complaining and whining, nothing will change. Constructive criticism
is much better than the messages you sent.

And if we continue this conversation: please point out which styles
you would like to see available. There too many documents at PRAGMA,
so we might talk about different items. 

Patrick
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List archive: http://archive.contextgarden.net

Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Hans Hagen]

Paulo Ney de Souza wrote:

>This is one of the sore points of ConTeXt and of the development
>  
>
i addition to patricks remarks:

- it would take a lot of effort to keep such a source code repository up 
to date and in sync (else too many questions) with the pdf repositoty
- we only publish documented sources
- i want to stimulate users to writ etheir own styles not to mimick 
existing ones (i.e. avoid the 'all tex files look the same' problem)
- also: most examples in manuals are typeset using

\startbuffer
...
\stopbuffer

\typebuffer \getbuffer

so ... there are no hidden tricks (unless it would bother/confuse 
users); and .. things like cover designs i wanna keep for myself if only 
to avoid cutting and pasting

in due time, probably more sources will go on line, but only when i have 
a system/method of keeping things in sync; i don't like the idea to go 
on-line for each change that i want to make (we only have dsl for half a 
year, before that i had to do all on 64 lines which is no fun)

Hans

Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Paulo Ney de Souza]

Everyone learns a language by example, if you try to teach one you 
will see, even Patrick, when he was a baby learned his first language
by example (real language), it is only natural, it is only human. To
argue the contrary is just lack of experience in teaching.

Paulo Ney

    >From ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl  Mon Aug  2 20:05:20 2004
    >From: skhilji@tampabay.rr.com
    >Subject: Re: [NTG-context] Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
    >To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
    >
    >Adding to this thread (I don't mean a reply to Paulo, but rather a reply to what Hans was saying earlier)...The problem with "normal users" cooking up new styles is the lack of artistic abilities in some people (like me).  One can, obviously go thru the manual cover the cover, but if one does not have creative thinking, then creating professional looking styles would be hard.  That is why, users like me really do not care if our documents look like everybody else's (just as long as they look professional).
    >
    >Its kind of like learning Photoshop and knowing what each toolbar button does....but not knowing how to mix all the available tools create a professional looking graphic.
    >
    >And of course, once we learn the tool, then making small changes here and there to make it look slightly different is no big deal.
    >
    >Salman
    >
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    >ntg-context@ntg.nl
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Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Nikolai Weibull]

* Paulo Ney de Souza <desouza@Math.Berkeley.EDU> [Aug 03, 2004 11:21]:
> Everyone learns a language by example...

What you should really be doing is asking specific questions to problems
you're having with ConTeXt on this list.  I have gotten almost all my
questions answered by now.
	nikolai

--
::: name: Nikolai Weibull    :: aliases: pcp / lone-star / aka :::
::: born: Chicago, IL USA    :: loc atm: Gothenburg, Sweden    :::
::: page: www.pcppopper.org  :: fun atm: gf,lps,ruby,lisp,war3 :::
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}

Re: Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Hans Hagen]

Nikolai Weibull wrote:

>* Paulo Ney de Souza <desouza@Math.Berkeley.EDU> [Aug 03, 2004 11:21]:
>  
>
>>Everyone learns a language by example...
>>    
>>
>
>What you should really be doing is asking specific questions to problems
>you're having with ConTeXt on this list.  I have gotten almost all my
>questions answered by now.
>  
>
... and after that write MyWays, or add info to the wiki or write an article for tugboat or the maps or dtk or ... 

Hans 

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Re: Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?

[Paulo Ney de Souza]

Patrick,

Maybe we should move this discussion off the list to not bother others
that may not be so interested in it.

What I am trying to say (answering your question) is that learning by
example is natural to human behaviour and extremely efficient. If you
attend any of my classes here in Berkeley you will see examples from 
begining to the end, no matter what the subject is: math or programming.
Even with learned programmers, examples do work well, I took, for example 
(no pun intended) an MSDN CD for C++ I have here by my side, 80% os the 
space in the disk is taken by examples, the rest is shared between the 
software, SDK, and manuals ... 

You promptly assumed that the guy wanted to copy the examples at hand.
I don't think that this is right! He may indeed end up copying it, but
you can't assume it.

Paulo Ney

    >From ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl  Mon Aug  2 23:40:12 2004
    >From: "Patrick Gundlach" <patrick@gundla.ch>
    >To: ntg-context@ntg.nl
    >Subject: [NTG-context] Re: Best source of ConTeXt documentation?
    >
    >Hello Paulo,
    >
    >> Everyone learns a language by example, if you try to teach one you 
    >> will see, even Patrick, when he was a baby learned his first language
    >> by example (real language), it is only natural, it is only human. To
    >> argue the contrary is just lack of experience in teaching.
    >
    >Right, but what do you want to say? Typography and design is not a
    >matter of learning a language. 
    >
    >Patrick
    >-- 
    >ConTeXt wiki: http://contextgarden.net
    >texshow-web:  http://texshow.contextgarden.net
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