upto current

upto current

[Hans Hagen]

Hi,

One these days there will be a first iteration of this years 'current' 
release. This has to do with the texlive code freeze. As usual the 
current is paired with a version of luatex and mplib, of which there 
also will be a frozen version soon. This year we also have luajittex.

Among the biggest differences between this and the previous current are:

- More low level tex code has been made mkiv compliant. This had a side 
effect of introducing bugs. As expected more flexibility an potential 
for extensions has not resulted in slower runs.

- Some mechanisms have been rewritten, some even from scratch (a new 
table mechanism, multi columns). We tried to remain compatible but where 
possible inconsistencies have been removed.

- Of course bugs have been removed also thanks to Wolfgang and others. 
Like before users have been very patient and willing to test. The 
updated wiki and good examples that show up on sites are an indication 
that mkiv has mostly replaced mkii.

- There is some new math magic under the hood. We switched to tex gyre 
and latin modern open math as defaults.

- Lua code has been optimized: leaner, meaner, less dependent, version 
5.2 etc. There is more helper code available pending future extensions 
to mkiv. Basic code can be used in stock Lua.

- The 2013 current performs significantly faster than previous versions 
and (certainly) on complex jobs mkiv outperforms mkii. Lots of time went 
into identifying and removing bottlenecks.

- When luajittex is used, thanks to the faster virtual machine, mkiv 
benefits a lot: 20-490% faster runs are possible. I usually test with 
manuals I'm working on, but a nice base test is \dorecurse {1000} 
{test\page} which now runs 20% faster with stock luatex and 50% faster 
with luajittex.

- The font database generator is made more efficient and unless you do a 
full reload take hardly any time to regenerate after an update. This 
means that updating betas is more convenient. In general all logging to 
the terminal and log file is faster due to several optimizations.

- Some mtx scripts have been extended, some more will show up.

- We ship a set of advanced scite lexers (tex, lua, cld, mp, w, xml, 
etc. plus a context setup) that can serve as benchmark for syntax 
highlighting context code. To some extent this also determines the way 
mkiv is coded.

I probably forgot a lot. After the current is done, we can start 
thinking of what to do next. Here are some thoughts:

- Improving the output routines. This is non-trivial. Maybe I'll rewrite 
the columnsets code. The mixed column figure placement can be improved too.

- Some mechanism will get support for setups alongside commands, like 
sections and list related mechanisms already has.

- Parts of the xml handling can be cleaned up, although the current code 
performs rather well already.

- Support for sql might get more integrated into the core (a side effect 
of projects I'm working on).

- I might pickup the metatex thread: a generic base with special purpose 
subsets of code. It might not be worth the trouble, but it's good to 
have a proper dependency tree.

- I will continue making some of the Lua code more generic (maybe by 
introducing some additional namespaces).

- I need to cleanup all the s-* files: namespaces, mkii->mkiv, etc. A 
tedious job. Clean up all mkiv presentation styles. (Something for rainy 
days or cold winter nights with stacks of new cd's to make that effort 
bearable.)

- Play with a partial css simulator (relates to export), but only when 
I'm really bored or need it (getting css itself right is already enough 
of a challenge).

- Pick up on ideas with respect to math dictionaries. Add some support 
for breaking large math formulas. Kick out more old code.

- Play with alternative par builders, i.e. finally add the mkiv Lua 
parbuilder that I have around for years into the distribution. This 
relates to a drastic cleanup of expansion code in the luatex front- and 
backend.

- Include some third party modules into the core distribution.

- Remove bottlenecks in mkiv where possible (user input is needed for 
this).

Then there are the documents:

- Update the xml descriptions (Wolfgang has been working on this, and 
there is the wiki).

- Finish the 'cld' manual (mostly done).

- Update the 'xml' mkiv manual (doable, maybe users have examples too).

- Finish the updated 'mathml' manual (done but needs checking but then I 
might overhaul the whole lot again).

- Finish the more technical 'mkiv font' manual (tedious job but okay).

- Pickup the 'stylistics' manual (also nice to do but a bit tedious). 


- Turn 'hybrid' into a more finished document (the second part of the 
history of mkiv/luatex).

- Add more to the 'about' series (the third part).

Of course this is too ambitious but it's good to remind myself that some 
work needs to be done. And ... users might have ideas of what needs to 
be done as well.

Hans

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Re: upto current

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013, Hans Hagen wrote:

> One these days there will be a first iteration of this years 'current' 
> release. This has to do with the texlive code freeze.

Are there any plans to do an actual development freeze a few weeks before 
the TL code freeze to ensure that the TL version is not beta quality.

Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to 
update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new 
users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more 
likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt 
standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the 
impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.

As anecdotal evidence, I used ConTeXt TL for my most recent article for 
tugboat. There were some serious bugs in ConTeXt TL (multi-column 
footnotes not working, marking styles not working, wrong font scaling, 
etc.) and I had to struggle to get everything to work correctly. Most of 
these bugs were fixed in the latest beta. But if I were a new user, I 
would not have the patience to download and test the latest beta when a 
supposedly stable release has serious bugs.

So, I'd like to suggest that for a few weeks before the TL freeze, we do a 
ConTeXt-beta freeze with only changes being bug fixes.

Aditya
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Re: upto current

[Hans Hagen]

On 3/19/2013 7:47 PM, Aditya Mahajan wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Mar 2013, Hans Hagen wrote:
>
>> One these days there will be a first iteration of this years 'current'
>> release. This has to do with the texlive code freeze.
>
> Are there any plans to do an actual development freeze a few weeks
> before the TL code freeze to ensure that the TL version is not beta
> quality.

The code freeze is in about a month. In principle Mojca/Taco can use the 
current beta as starting point for testing. I have no clue if there are 
issues but as context is rather independent there shouldn't be many

I have just one (flat) source tree here so freezing current also means 
freezing beta. Afaik Mojca never figured out how to have a current 
alongside a beta in her git setup, otherwise someone could push fixes 
from beta into the current branch. I have no time to look into that kind 
of stuff.

> Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to
> update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new
> users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is
> more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt
> standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the
> impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.

Sure. Although mkiv, certainly at that time, was a bit more beta, even 
the then 'current' -)

> As anecdotal evidence, I used ConTeXt TL for my most recent article for
> tugboat. There were some serious bugs in ConTeXt TL (multi-column
> footnotes not working, marking styles not working, wrong font scaling,
> etc.) and I had to struggle to get everything to work correctly. Most of
> these bugs were fixed in the latest beta. But if I were a new user, I
> would not have the patience to download and test the latest beta when a
> supposedly stable release has serious bugs.

Last year we froze too soon. In retrospect we should have pushed the 
beta (also because we froze about the time the new luatex came out). In 
retrospect frozen could have been less frozen then. We even had the 
weird situation that the generic font code was frozen in current but the 
last versions were taken for non context use instead of the frozen code. 
But that's out of our control anyway.

> So, I'd like to suggest that for a few weeks before the TL freeze, we do
> a ConTeXt-beta freeze with only changes being bug fixes.

We can try .. I have no plans for drastic changes (and no time for it 
the next weeks anyway). We depend on users to notice things that are 
broken (let's forget about things that could be improved): fonts  not 
rendering, files not being found, crashes due to typos, etc.

Hans

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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
     tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: upto current

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Tue, 19 Mar 2013, Hans Hagen wrote:

> On 3/19/2013 7:47 PM, Aditya Mahajan wrote:
>
>> So, I'd like to suggest that for a few weeks before the TL freeze, we do
>> a ConTeXt-beta freeze with only changes being bug fixes.
>
> We can try .. I have no plans for drastic changes (and no time for it the 
> next weeks anyway). We depend on users to notice things that are broken 
> (let's forget about things that could be improved): fonts  not rendering, 
> files not being found, crashes due to typos, etc.

As long as you don't have too much time, we should be OK :) Sometimes the 
trouble is that you make changes at a faster rate than the rate at which 
we users can test it!

Aditya
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Re: upto current

[Otared Kavian]

On 19 mars 2013, at 19:47, Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:

> […]Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.

Hi,

To support what suggests Aditya, I would like to say that the main issue with the current state of ConTeXt in TeXLive (either mkii or mkiv) is that most « lambda » users of TeX whom I know in the mathematics world and in accademia, that is:
	--- users who are not familiar with what should be changed in TeXLive, 
	--- users who don't even know TeX and LaTeX are not synonyms, 
	--- users who don't know that there exist another environments and macro packages for typesetting tex-files, 
	--- users who don't know that using ConTeXt one can do better typesetting, and that it has better features, 
all those users are not going to install a stand alone ConTeXt. They would use TeXLive, they would try everything in it, but all they want is to write a paper and typeset it with a TeX package with a single command (or in the case of Mac users, from within TeXShop or another editor). Most of them do not even know where TeXLive sits on their computer, and they don't know how to install something new.
Unfortunately, the ConTeXt in TeXLive does not work out of the box: the user has to issue a few commands before he can typeset a file with ConTeXt, either mkii or mkiv (for instance on my installation of TeXLive, after having issued a few commands, which I don't remember right now, I can use ConTeXt with LuaTeX, that is mkiv, but I cannot use mkii).

For my part I have been advocating ConTeXt among my colleagues (especially for course materials and books, since submitting a paper to a journal is essentially impossible if it is a ConTeXt file). Most of them agree that ConTeXt gives a much better result, but when it comes to how to use ConTeXt from TeXLive they are afraid and don't go further. For some of them I have installed a stand alone ConTeXt, but most of them do not update their installation, since they would not use the most recent features or improvements (for most of day to day typesettings, when one does not use complexe features, even a beta version is sufficiently stable for such users).

So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to issue any command other than:
	context myfile.tex
This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior.

Best regards: OKs
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Re: upto current

[Meer H. van der]

On 20 mrt. 2013, at 07:05, Otared Kavian <otared@gmail.com>
 wrote:

> 
> On 19 mars 2013, at 19:47, Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:
> 
>> […]Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> 
> So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to issue any command other than:
> 	context myfile.tex
> This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior.
> 

Being a fan of ConTeXt, I strongly agree with the above plea to make ConTeXt a painless experience for most users. I think of myself as someone who knows a bit of computers and programming. But even then I can feel sometimes something of what others must experience when nothing seems to work and no idea why.

The best advocate for ConTeXt is an "invisible" ConTeXt for all those out there who just want their stuff made printer ready without hassles. ConTeXt deserves a wider use.

Hans van der Meer


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Re: upto current

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi Hans, All,


The biggest crux in using ConTeXt is its documentation.
True, things have gotten a lot better in the past year!

Yet, there is no ONE definitive place to get comprehensive
and EASY to find documentation. 

	1) Garden is really not that easy to navigate
	2) Garden is loaded with a mixture of mkii and mkiv
            and it is not always clear if the page one is on is for
	    mkii or mkiv or quite outdated.

	3) PRAGMA does have up to date manuals.
	4) These manuals are quite unfinished in many parts,
             as are all many of the older manuals.
   
                 Very frustrating

	5) The newer manuals should be part of the standalone.
             ( I hate going online to look for a manual when it
               should be installed already)

	6) Reference manuals are fine for the advanced user, but for
	    the beginner or intermediate they are not much help.
            Especially, if if one does not understand TeX, or Typesetting,
	    and one really does not need to use all those options.

My suggestion would be to have garden have a manuals download
area where one can get the up to date manuals from Pragma and
where one can discern how old the others are. It should be also, easy to find.

regards
	Keith.   
  

Am 19.03.2013 um 19:16 schrieb Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>:

> Hi,
> 
[snip, snip]
> Then there are the documents:
> 
> - Update the xml descriptions (Wolfgang has been working on this, and there is the wiki).
> 
> - Finish the 'cld' manual (mostly done).
> 
> - Update the 'xml' mkiv manual (doable, maybe users have examples too).
> 
> - Finish the updated 'mathml' manual (done but needs checking but then I might overhaul the whole lot again).
> 
> - Finish the more technical 'mkiv font' manual (tedious job but okay).
> 
> - Pickup the 'stylistics' manual (also nice to do but a bit tedious). 
> 
> - Turn 'hybrid' into a more finished document (the second part of the history of mkiv/luatex).
> 
> - Add more to the 'about' series (the third part).
> 
> Of course this is too ambitious but it's good to remind myself that some work needs to be done. And ... users might have ideas of what needs to be done as well.
> 
> Hans

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Re: upto current

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi All,

Am 20.03.2013 um 07:05 schrieb Otared Kavian <otared@gmail.com>:

> 
> On 19 mars 2013, at 19:47, Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:
> 
>> […]Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.
> 
> Hi,
> 
[snip, snip]

> For my part I have been advocating ConTeXt among my colleagues (especially for course materials and books, since submitting a paper to a journal is essentially impossible if it is a ConTeXt file). Most of them agree that ConTeXt gives a much better result, but when it comes to how to use ConTeXt from TeXLive they are afraid and don't go further. For some of them I have installed a stand alone ConTeXt, but most of them do not update their installation, since they would not use the most recent features or improvements (for most of day to day typesettings, when one does not use complexe features, even a beta version is sufficiently stable for such users).


I find it interesting, that here and in other posts that is mention that publishers are reluctant 
to accept ConTeXt files. O.K. Understandable!

But, my experience has been that they will accept PDFs, or prefer PDF over
TeX-source files or Word files.

regards
	Keith.

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Re: upto current

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-03-20, o godz. 09:12:21
"Keith J. Schultz" <keithjschultz@web.de> napisał(a):

> Hi Hans, All,
> 
> 
> The biggest crux in using ConTeXt is its documentation.
> True, things have gotten a lot better in the past year!
> 
> Yet, there is no ONE definitive place to get comprehensive
> and EASY to find documentation. 
> 
> 	1) Garden is really not that easy to navigate
> 	2) Garden is loaded with a mixture of mkii and mkiv
>             and it is not always clear if the page one is on is for
> 	    mkii or mkiv or quite outdated.
> 
> 	3) PRAGMA does have up to date manuals.
> 	4) These manuals are quite unfinished in many parts,
>              as are all many of the older manuals.
>    
>                  Very frustrating
> 
> 	5) The newer manuals should be part of the standalone.
>              ( I hate going online to look for a manual when it
>                should be installed already)
> 
> 	6) Reference manuals are fine for the advanced user, but for
> 	    the beginner or intermediate they are not much help.
>             Especially, if if one does not understand TeX, or
> Typesetting, and one really does not need to use all those options.
> 
> My suggestion would be to have garden have a manuals download
> area where one can get the up to date manuals from Pragma and
> where one can discern how old the others are. It should be also, easy
> to find.
> 
> regards
> 	Keith.   

That is quite true, though not that easy.  In essence, I think someone
would have to be paid for tracking the mailing list and updating
manuals.  AFAIK, Sietse does a great job updating the wiki, but the
wiki is not necessarily the easiest thing to go to for newbies (as you
have noticed).

It is quite obvious for me that Pragma won't fund such an enterprise
(not that I'm claiming it should - of course not!).  I think the only
body which might do it is either TUG, either some other UG - but then, I
guess they are already funding LaTeX3 (which is kind of a competitor -
albeit friendly - to ConTeXt), either font projects (TeX Gyre!), which
are quite beneficial to the ConTeXt ecosystem, too.

And there are books - but then, you have to pay for them (which also
seems right, since it is quite an undertaking to write a book,
especially about a "moving target" like ConTeXt...)

So basically: unless there is some significant funding, I'm rather a
skeptic.

Regards,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University
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Re: upto current

[Hans Hagen]

On 3/20/2013 7:05 AM, Otared Kavian wrote:

> So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to issue any command other than:
> 	context myfile.tex
> This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior.

if it doesn't work that way something is wrong ... mtxrun (to which 
context is an alias) is selfcontained and will generate its own file 
database and then context will generat eits own format (even after an 
update) so ...

Hans

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Re: upto current

[Hans Hagen]

On 3/20/2013 9:12 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
> Hi Hans, All,
>
>
> The biggest crux in using ConTeXt is its documentation.
> True, things have gotten a lot better in the past year!
>
> Yet, there is no ONE definitive place to get comprehensive
> and EASY to find documentation.
>
> 	1) Garden is really not that easy to navigate
> 	2) Garden is loaded with a mixture of mkii and mkiv
>              and it is not always clear if the page one is on is for
> 	    mkii or mkiv or quite outdated.

i wonder how easy it is to split that ... we could move mkii stuff to s 
separate place (or always at the bottom below a "MKII" subtitle)

> 	3) PRAGMA does have up to date manuals.
> 	4) These manuals are quite unfinished in many parts,
>               as are all many of the older manuals.
>
>                   Very frustrating

Most of the old manuals are not that faulty. Maybe incomplete with 
respect to the latest features, but most in it should still work.

With respect to unfinished: yesterday i wondered if I should put the 
intermediate but unfinished font manual on the website but it looks like 
I can better not do that.

> 	5) The newer manuals should be part of the standalone.
>               ( I hate going online to look for a manual when it
>                 should be installed already)

Up to others.

> 	6) Reference manuals are fine for the advanced user, but for
> 	    the beginner or intermediate they are not much help.
>              Especially, if if one does not understand TeX, or Typesetting,
> 	    and one really does not need to use all those options.

That's up to users ... it has been said before, but this is where the 
internet backfires: a lot of tex tutorials started out as articles i.e. 
users writing down experiences. I simply have no more time left to write 
down more than I do now.

> My suggestion would be to have garden have a manuals download
> area where one can get the up to date manuals from Pragma and
> where one can discern how old the others are. It should be also, easy to find.

So maybe you can help Mojca with that .. someone needs to do it and keep 
doing it (descriptions, copies cq. links, etc.).

Hans


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               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
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                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
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Re: upto current

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Hans Hagen wrote:
> On 3/20/2013 7:05 AM, Otared Kavian wrote:
>
>> So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so
>> that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to
>> issue any command other than:
>>         context myfile.tex
>> This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong
>> reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior.
>
> if it doesn't work that way something is wrong ... mtxrun (to which context
> is an alias) is selfcontained and will generate its own file database and
> then context will generat eits own format (even after an update) so ...

Yes, this seems a bit weird. ConTeXt in TeX Live 2012 might have had
bugs, but it should have at least worked out of the box.

It is possible that your copy actually became problematic *after*
issuing those few commands. In particular, running "texexec --make en"
would create a new format at a different location than the system
would put it. As a consequence all further updates become shadowed by
the old manually created format and you would need to run "texexec
--make en" manually for every update, else MKII becomes broken (not
that there were many updates, but this could serve as an example).

Mojca
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Re: upto current

[Hans Hagen]

On 3/20/2013 10:27 AM, Mojca Miklavec wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Hans Hagen wrote:
>> On 3/20/2013 7:05 AM, Otared Kavian wrote:
>>
>>> So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so
>>> that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to
>>> issue any command other than:
>>>          context myfile.tex
>>> This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong
>>> reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior.
>>
>> if it doesn't work that way something is wrong ... mtxrun (to which context
>> is an alias) is selfcontained and will generate its own file database and
>> then context will generat eits own format (even after an update) so ...
>
> Yes, this seems a bit weird. ConTeXt in TeX Live 2012 might have had
> bugs, but it should have at least worked out of the box.
>
> It is possible that your copy actually became problematic *after*
> issuing those few commands. In particular, running "texexec --make en"
> would create a new format at a different location than the system
> would put it. As a consequence all further updates become shadowed by
> the old manually created format and you would need to run "texexec
> --make en" manually for every update, else MKII becomes broken (not
> that there were many updates, but this could serve as an example).

this is indeed an issue ... recently I spend a few hours tracking down 
an issue just to find out that for whatever reason a file had ended up 
in a local path .. hard to track down .. one should also keep in mind 
that tds is set up in a way that more or less assumes that there are no 
files in the tree with the same name (at least not in the same category) 
because at some point the order of dir entries start to matter

Hans

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Re: upto current

[Keith J. Schultz]

Am 20.03.2013 um 09:25 schrieb Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>:

> Dnia 2013-03-20, o godz. 09:12:21
> "Keith J. Schultz" <keithjschultz@web.de> napisał(a):
> 
>> 
[snip, snip]
>> My suggestion would be to have garden have a manuals download
>> area where one can get the up to date manuals from Pragma and
>> where one can discern how old the others are. It should be also, easy
>> to find.
>> 
>> regards
>> 	Keith.   
> 
> That is quite true, though not that easy.  In essence, I think someone
> would have to be paid for tracking the mailing list and updating
> manuals.  AFAIK, Sietse does a great job updating the wiki, but the
> wiki is not necessarily the easiest thing to go to for newbies (as you
> have noticed).
> 
> It is quite obvious for me that Pragma won't fund such an enterprise
> (not that I'm claiming it should - of course not!).  I think the only
> body which might do it is either TUG, either some other UG - but then, I
> guess they are already funding LaTeX3 (which is kind of a competitor -
> albeit friendly - to ConTeXt), either font projects (TeX Gyre!), which
> are quite beneficial to the ConTeXt ecosystem, too.

I do not get you here. 
Garden just needs a little redesigning or more correctly cleaning up.
 I see no need for funding.
I am not into wikis or I would offer to do it. 

regards
	Keith.

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Re: upto current

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 6:54 PM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
> Am 20.03.2013 um 09:25 schrieb Marcin Borkowski:
>>
>> That is quite true, though not that easy.  In essence, I think someone
>> would have to be paid for tracking the mailing list and updating
>> manuals.  AFAIK, Sietse does a great job updating the wiki, but the
>> wiki is not necessarily the easiest thing to go to for newbies (as you
>> have noticed).
>>
>> It is quite obvious for me that Pragma won't fund such an enterprise
>> (not that I'm claiming it should - of course not!).  I think the only
>> body which might do it is either TUG, either some other UG - but then, I
>> guess they are already funding LaTeX3 (which is kind of a competitor -
>> albeit friendly - to ConTeXt), either font projects (TeX Gyre!), which
>> are quite beneficial to the ConTeXt ecosystem, too.
>
> I do not get you here.
> Garden just needs a little redesigning or more correctly cleaning up.
>  I see no need for funding.

Marcin wasn't talking about organizing the wiki page, but about
writing up-to-date and complete manuals (in PDF) which is nearly
impossible with the speed that Hans keeps developing ConTeXt ;).

Mojca
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Re: upto current

[Alan BRASLAU]

On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:19:24 +0100
Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote:

> Marcin wasn't talking about organizing the wiki page, but about
> writing up-to-date and complete manuals (in PDF) which is nearly
> impossible with the speed that Hans keeps developing ConTeXt ;).

Unless we find funding somewhere to assign someone sufficiently
competent to work full-time for Hans just to write and maintain
documentation.

This is not a bad idea if only we could get it sponsored...

Alan
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Re: upto current

[Marcin Borkowski]

Dnia 2013-03-21, o godz. 11:32:01
Alan BRASLAU <alan.braslau@cea.fr> napisał(a):

> On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:19:24 +0100
> Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Marcin wasn't talking about organizing the wiki page, but about
> > writing up-to-date and complete manuals (in PDF) which is nearly
> > impossible with the speed that Hans keeps developing ConTeXt ;).
> 
> Unless we find funding somewhere to assign someone sufficiently
> competent to work full-time for Hans just to write and maintain
> documentation.
> 
> This is not a bad idea if only we could get it sponsored...

I have an impression that I heard about something similar to GSoC, but
for writing docs...

Also, it might not need a full-time job, even if you want to keep up
with Hans' speed.  And even a good free book on, say, a "snapshot" of
ConTeXt from some point in time (later than official manuals) would be
useful.

> Alan

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University
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Re: upto current

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi All,

Maybe, we could setup a collaborative work group to do the documentation.

That is a group of us are responsible for certain groups of commands. This way
the manuals can become more complete. That way some of the more advance
stuff that is hardly documented finally gets documented.

What we would need is a specification for:
	1) how the command and its parameters are portrayed
	2) full description of defaults values and their effects and side effects
	3) general intention of the command its parameters
	4) MWEs describing the standard use of all parameters
	5) MWEs for non standard use (Advanced technics)
	6) standrad way for referencing other commands

If everybody follows the conventions we can then combine all the parts to a 
comprehensive manuals. They will work as a reference and tutorial. 

When something new is introduced the group is informed and can update their
subject(s). 

I would be willing to help. Any other takers?

regards
	Keith.


 
Am 21.03.2013 um 15:26 schrieb Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl>:

> Dnia 2013-03-21, o godz. 11:32:01
> Alan BRASLAU <alan.braslau@cea.fr> napisał(a):
> 
>> On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:19:24 +0100
>> Mojca Miklavec <mojca.miklavec.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Marcin wasn't talking about organizing the wiki page, but about
>>> writing up-to-date and complete manuals (in PDF) which is nearly
>>> impossible with the speed that Hans keeps developing ConTeXt ;).
>> 
>> Unless we find funding somewhere to assign someone sufficiently
>> competent to work full-time for Hans just to write and maintain
>> documentation.
>> 
>> This is not a bad idea if only we could get it sponsored...
> 
> I have an impression that I heard about something similar to GSoC, but
> for writing docs...
> 
> Also, it might not need a full-time job, even if you want to keep up
> with Hans' speed.  And even a good free book on, say, a "snapshot" of
> ConTeXt from some point in time (later than official manuals) would be
> useful.
> 

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command reference (was: upto current)

[Peter Münster]

Hi Keith,

What about one lua table per command?
See also:
- http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/
- http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context.devel/1507
- https://foundry.supelec.fr/scm/viewvc.php/context-commands/?root=contextman

-- 
           Peter
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Re: command reference (was: upto current)

[Procházka Lukáš Ing. - Pontex s. r. o.]

Hello,

On Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:26:20 +0100, Peter Münster <pmlists@free.fr> wrote:

> Hi Keith,
>
> What about one lua table per command?
> See also:
> - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/

this looks nice.

Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command definition is prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have a generator which would convert and add info to wiki.

I don't know whether it is possible; and I'm aware that much efforts of many contributors were passed to wiki...

But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work
(not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF, wiki, whatever}).

Best regards,

Lukas


> - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context.devel/1507
> - https://foundry.supelec.fr/scm/viewvc.php/context-commands/?root=contextman
>


-- 
Ing. Lukáš Procházka [mailto:LPr@pontex.cz]
Pontex s. r. o.      [mailto:pontex@pontex.cz] [http://www.pontex.cz]
Bezová 1658
147 14 Praha 4

Tel: +420 244 062 238
Fax: +420 244 461 038

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Re: command reference

[Peter Münster]

On Fri, Mar 22 2013, Procházka Lukáš Ing. - Pontex s. r. o. wrote:

> Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command definition is
> prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have a generator which would
> convert and add info to wiki.

Exporting to whatever format you want should be no problem with lua.


> But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work
> (not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF, wiki, whatever}).

Yes!

-- 
           Peter
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Re: command reference

[Hans Hagen]

On 3/22/2013 11:11 AM, Procházka Lukáš Ing. - Pontex s. r. o. wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:26:20 +0100, Peter Münster <pmlists@free.fr> wrote:
>
>> Hi Keith,
>>
>> What about one lua table per command?
>> See also:
>> -
>> http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/
>>
>
> this looks nice.
>
> Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command definition
> is prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have a generator which
> would convert and add info to wiki.
>
> I don't know whether it is possible; and I'm aware that much efforts of
> many contributors were passed to wiki...
>
> But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work
> (not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF,
> wiki, whatever}).

Wolfgang has redone many of the xml defs (not yet finished afaik). 
anyway, as long as I can construct a "cont-en.xml" file from whatever 
data it's fine for me (manipulating and filtering xml is rather 
convenient.)

Makes me wonder ... did anyone ever look into

http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/en/Lua

it stores info in lua and it could probably be used for managing such a 
reference beast.

Hans

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Re: upto current

[Bill Meahan]

On 03/22/2013 03:31 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Maybe, we could setup a collaborative work group to do the documentation.
>
> That is a group of us are responsible for certain groups of commands. This way
> the manuals can become more complete. That way some of the more advance
> stuff that is hardly documented finally gets documented.
>
> What we would need is a specification for:
>    [snip]
In 45+ years of programming[1] it has never ceased to amaze me how 
the wheel has to be reinvented for every new system whether 
language, macro package or whatever. Why do it again? Why not adopt 
some documentation system that is already widely-used and for which 
infrastructure and knowledge of use is already in place?

I have no investment in any particular system. I'm happily 
generating other types of non-computer-related documents using 
reStructuredText since I can easily convert that various publication 
formats as required without separate source files for each format. 
It seems to me docutils has everything that would be needed to 
document ConTeXt and is very widely used given the popularity of 
Python (which makes me cringe). If doxygen or something else would 
work better, so be it. The point is, **use something that exists 
instead of expending time and effort reinventing the wheel yet again!**

[1] I was, am and will be a "programmer" and not a "software 
developer" or "software engineer." The term adequately depicts what 
I did/do while the others are simply too pretentious. Find the old 
article "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" in an archive somewhere 
-- I've been a "real programmer" and I suspect Hans is, too. :)

Sorry for the rants but it is so frustrating to have to install so 
many different language support and documentation systems simply 
because I use FOSS tools exclusively.

-- 
Bill Meahan
Westland, Michigan USA

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Re: upto current

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hi Bill,

On 03/22/2013 03:19 PM, Bill Meahan wrote:
>>
>> What we would need is a specification for:
>>    [snip]
> In 45+ years of programming[1] it has never ceased to amaze me how the
> wheel has to be reinvented for every new system whether language, macro
> package or whatever. Why do it again? Why not adopt some documentation
> system that is already widely-used and for which infrastructure and
> knowledge of use is already in place?

I do not want to dig into the documentation discussion (I have no time
for that), but your reply did make me want to respond to the analogy.

In fact, I have a return question for the "Why reinvent the wheel?" :

    Why do bicycles not come equipped with tractor wheels?

Best wishes,
Taco





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Re: upto current

[luigi scarso]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Taco Hoekwater <taco@docwolves.nl> wrote:
>    Why do bicycles not come equipped with tractor wheels?
hm... they do !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGGlODF7_RY


--
luigi
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Re: command reference (was: upto current)

[Sietse Brouwer]

Hi all,

Peter wrote:
> What about one lua table per command?
> See also:
> - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/

Lukáš wrote:
> Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command
> definition is prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have
> a generator which would convert and add info to wiki.
>
> But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work
> (not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF, wiki,
> whatever}).

Hello all,

As regards the question 'where/how to store a the master information
of the command reference'; I' been thinking on that for a while, and I
believe "on the wiki / in structured wiki templates" is the best
answer.

This is not because the wiki syntax is so nice -- as far as that goes,
Lua is nicer. But: the wiki is massively more visible than any file or
directory in the standalone could ever be.

These are advantages the wiki copy has over other copies:

A. It is the most visible copy
B. It is the easiest copy for people to edit
C. It has versioning and contributor-tracking built-in
D. The wiki will always receive contributions. If it is also the
master copy, we don't have to backmerge the contributions into some
other file.
E. The wiki updates immediately when people edit it.
F. There exists a form-based editor for wiki pages, to ensure people
use the template. Example:
http://discoursedb.org/w/index.php?title=Picture_IDs_are_perfectly_sensible&action=formedit
G. There exists an extension to mark versions as 'reviewed'.

Now, creating a suitable template is core to this plan. Since that is
(1) a rather tricky problem, (2) one that I want to solve anyway
(because even if we go Lua-based, we still want a wiki template to
write to), I will open a separate e-mail thread on the subject.

== How to make sure people use the template? ==

The Semantic Forms extension means that with one click of the button,
you are taken to a semantic form to create or edit (part of) a command
page. You fill in the fields; the extension enters the field values
into the proper bits of the template. You can add descriptions of what
to write in the field.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Forms
Example of how such a form will look:
http://discoursedb.org/w/index.php?title=Picture_IDs_are_perfectly_sensible&action=formedit


== How do we know we can trust wiki edits? ==

For that, there is the MediaWiki extension Flagged Revisions, to mark
versions as approved. It is used by wikibooks, inter alia.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs

Cheers,

Sietse
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Re: upto current

[Hans Hagen]

On 3/22/2013 3:19 PM, Bill Meahan wrote:
> On 03/22/2013 03:31 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Maybe, we could setup a collaborative work group to do the documentation.
>>
>> That is a group of us are responsible for certain groups of commands.
>> This way
>> the manuals can become more complete. That way some of the more advance
>> stuff that is hardly documented finally gets documented.
>>
>> What we would need is a specification for:
>>    [snip]
> In 45+ years of programming[1] it has never ceased to amaze me how the
> wheel has to be reinvented for every new system whether language, macro
> package or whatever. Why do it again? Why not adopt some documentation
> system that is already widely-used and for which infrastructure and
> knowledge of use is already in place?
>
> I have no investment in any particular system. I'm happily generating
> other types of non-computer-related documents using reStructuredText
> since I can easily convert that various publication formats as required
> without separate source files for each format. It seems to me docutils
> has everything that would be needed to document ConTeXt and is very
> widely used given the popularity of Python (which makes me cringe). If
> doxygen or something else would work better, so be it. The point is,
> **use something that exists instead of expending time and effort
> reinventing the wheel yet again!**
>
> [1] I was, am and will be a "programmer" and not a "software developer"
> or "software engineer." The term adequately depicts what I did/do while
> the others are simply too pretentious. Find the old article "Real
> Programmers Don't Use Pascal" in an archive somewhere -- I've been a
> "real programmer" and I suspect Hans is, too. :)
>
> Sorry for the rants but it is so frustrating to have to install so many
> different language support and documentation systems simply because I
> use FOSS tools exclusively.

I can only speak for myself, but

- I did my share of programming (pascal, modula 2) when I university but 
at that time documentation was mostly in-source. My background is 
educational technology and not programming but I always ended up doing 
that. (I still have a stack of old listings somewhere of a formatter 
that I wrote for vms that took some kind of tagged ascii and paginated 
that etc.)

- Later on when I ended up in educational consultancy and development of 
all kind of educational stuff, context was developed simply because we 
needed a flexible typesetting tool. We also developed tools and 
workflows around it. Ha, there was no internet, at least not for us, so 
we didn't even know what else was around.

- So, whenever I have to write some documentation, I use context itself, 
after all, one needs to typeset examples. I normally pay a lot of 
attention to the document source code and can live with some tagging. If 
I had to do that in some * ** == -- & based ascii text format or 
whatever, I'd probably never write manuals (too much hassle to go beyond 
the obvious and not looking nice either, but that's personal).

- When I started with the command specification in xml, it was also 
because xml is easy to process, and (in mkiv) we can also easily filter 
based on expresssions. So, for that xml is quite natural for me. Just as 
nowadays lua is my natural choice and most of my current docs are a mix 
of mp, lua and tex, also depending on what looks nicest in document source.

- I happily leave additional documentation to others and whoever does 
that should should the tools he/she likes most. In these days one can 
always convert.

- But, to come back to your last comment: tex can typeset its own 
documentation so that's a rather natural choice for part of it.

Hans



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Re: command reference (was: upto current)

[Sietse Brouwer]

> Peter wrote:
>> What about one lua table per command?
>> See also:
>> - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/

NB1: I waffled a lot about wiki templates in the previous e-mail, but
of course it is also an option to use the Lua tables format and store
those files on the wiki. That gives us the visibility and editability
of the wiki without binding us to the wiki template format.

--Sietse

On 22 March 2013 15:42, Sietse Brouwer <sbbrouwer@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Peter wrote:
>> What about one lua table per command?
>> See also:
>> - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/
>
> Lukáš wrote:
>> Some connection to wiki would be useful, too - once a command
>> definition is prepared for PDF manual, it would be good to have
>> a generator which would convert and add info to wiki.
>>
>> But I'm thinking about how to avoid doubling documentation work
>> (not: wiki <-> PDF <-> whatever, but: something (be it Lua) -> {PDF, wiki,
>> whatever}).
>
> Hello all,
>
> As regards the question 'where/how to store a the master information
> of the command reference'; I' been thinking on that for a while, and I
> believe "on the wiki / in structured wiki templates" is the best
> answer.
>
> This is not because the wiki syntax is so nice -- as far as that goes,
> Lua is nicer. But: the wiki is massively more visible than any file or
> directory in the standalone could ever be.
>
> These are advantages the wiki copy has over other copies:
>
> A. It is the most visible copy
> B. It is the easiest copy for people to edit
> C. It has versioning and contributor-tracking built-in
> D. The wiki will always receive contributions. If it is also the
> master copy, we don't have to backmerge the contributions into some
> other file.
> E. The wiki updates immediately when people edit it.
> F. There exists a form-based editor for wiki pages, to ensure people
> use the template. Example:
> http://discoursedb.org/w/index.php?title=Picture_IDs_are_perfectly_sensible&action=formedit
> G. There exists an extension to mark versions as 'reviewed'.
>
> Now, creating a suitable template is core to this plan. Since that is
> (1) a rather tricky problem, (2) one that I want to solve anyway
> (because even if we go Lua-based, we still want a wiki template to
> write to), I will open a separate e-mail thread on the subject.
>
> == How to make sure people use the template? ==
>
> The Semantic Forms extension means that with one click of the button,
> you are taken to a semantic form to create or edit (part of) a command
> page. You fill in the fields; the extension enters the field values
> into the proper bits of the template. You can add descriptions of what
> to write in the field.
>
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Forms
> Example of how such a form will look:
> http://discoursedb.org/w/index.php?title=Picture_IDs_are_perfectly_sensible&action=formedit
>
>
> == How do we know we can trust wiki edits? ==
>
> For that, there is the MediaWiki extension Flagged Revisions, to mark
> versions as approved. It is used by wikibooks, inter alia.
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:FlaggedRevs
>
> Cheers,
>
> Sietse
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Re: command reference

[Hans Hagen]

On 3/22/2013 5:07 PM, Sietse Brouwer wrote:
>> Peter wrote:
>>> What about one lua table per command?
>>> See also:
>>> - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/
>
> NB1: I waffled a lot about wiki templates in the previous e-mail, but
> of course it is also an option to use the Lua tables format and store
> those files on the wiki. That gives us the visibility and editability
> of the wiki without binding us to the wiki template format.

isn't wikimedia lua aware nowadays?

Hans


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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
               Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
     tel: 038 477 53 69 | voip: 087 875 68 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
                                              | www.pragma-pod.nl
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___________________________________________________________________________________

Re: command reference

[Sietse Brouwer]

Sietse wrote:
>> NB1: I waffled a lot about wiki templates in the previous e-mail, but
>> of course it is also an option to use the Lua tables format and store
>> those files on the wiki. That gives us the visibility and editability
>> of the wiki without binding us to the wiki template format.

Hans wrote:
> isn't wikimedia lua aware nowadays?

Hah, so it is — I didn't know that. That sounds like it might be an
ideal fit at least for displaying the command reference, possibly also
for storing its info. In case anyone else is curious: here are some
useful pages I found. (The information was a bit scattered sometimes,
but this set of pages covers most bases.)

--Sietse

Wikipedia's main page on the Lua extension:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lua

Good example template:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module:BananasArgs

The reference manual:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension%3AScribunto/Lua_reference_manual

The extension's page:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Scribunto

Some discussion on using Lua databases:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-February/066656.html
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Re: upto current

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi Bill,

Am 22.03.2013 um 15:19 schrieb Bill Meahan <subscribed_lists@meahan.net>:

> On 03/22/2013 03:31 AM, Keith J. Schultz wrote:
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> Maybe, we could setup a collaborative work group to do the documentation.
>> 
>> That is a group of us are responsible for certain groups of commands. This way
>> the manuals can become more complete. That way some of the more advance
>> stuff that is hardly documented finally gets documented.
>> 
>> What we would need is a specification for:
>>   [snip]
> In 45+ years of programming[1] it has never ceased to amaze me how the wheel has to be reinvented for every new system whether language, macro package or whatever. Why do it again? Why not adopt some documentation system that is already widely-used and for which infrastructure and knowledge of use is already in place?

	I agree with your statement fully. Specification is a loaded word, too!
	What I was trying to say that we need convention how things are to be laid out!
	Setting up, maybe, a module to facilitate a common look. Otherwise the manuals
	will be a mess of styles and clarity. 
 
> I have no investment in any particular system. I'm happily generating other types of non-computer-related documents using reStructuredText since I can easily convert that various publication formats as required without separate source files for each format. It seems to me docutils has everything that would be needed to document ConTeXt and is very widely used given the popularity of Python (which makes me cringe). If doxygen or something else would work better, so be it. The point is, **use something that exists instead of expending time and effort reinventing the wheel yet again!**
	I was thinking of using ConTeXt!
> 
> [1] I was, am and will be a "programmer" and not a "software developer" or "software engineer." The term adequately depicts what I did/do while the others are simply too pretentious. Find the old article "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" in an archive somewhere -- I've been a "real programmer" and I suspect Hans is, too. :)
> 
> Sorry for the rants but it is so frustrating to have to install so many different language support and documentation systems simply because I use FOSS tools exclusively.
	No Problem.

regards
	Keith.
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Re: command reference (was: upto current)

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi Peter, All,

Sorry for the late reply.

As such looks good!

I have no preferences, as to the formats, that is something
the community or those involved should decide.

regards
	Keith.
  
Am 22.03.2013 um 09:26 schrieb Peter Münster <pmlists@free.fr>:

> Hi Keith,
> 
> What about one lua table per command?
> See also:
> - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/
> - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.tex.context.devel/1507
> - https://foundry.supelec.fr/scm/viewvc.php/context-commands/?root=contextman
> 

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Re: command reference (was: upto current)

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi All,

I agree that for the command reference should be fairly output format free,
but we have to keep in mind we will need a unified look for:
	1) Wiki
	2) PDFs

Also, we should not forget that we need examples with explanations.

regards
	Keith.

Am 22.03.2013 um 17:07 schrieb Sietse Brouwer <sbbrouwer@gmail.com>:

>> Peter wrote:
>>> What about one lua table per command?
>>> See also:
>>> - http://meeting.contextgarden.net/2010/talks/2010-09-14-peter-referencelua/
> 
> NB1: I waffled a lot about wiki templates in the previous e-mail, but
> of course it is also an option to use the Lua tables format and store
> those files on the wiki. That gives us the visibility and editability
> of the wiki without binding us to the wiki template format.

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