Re: Some preliminary difficulties

[David Arnold <darnold@northcoast.com>]

Hans,

>See attachment. 
>
>(1) you really should use PDFETEX instead of pdftex, since PDFETEX reports
>grouping problems and both your files had that. When a file is faulty,
>texexec will not enter a second pass. 

OK. I am now using pdfetex at home. I'll switch at the office tomorrow.

>(2) you should configure your editor (which one?) to do a symmetry check.
>There is a missing \stop in book and a missing \stopexample in chapter1

I use WinEdt. As much as I like WinEdt, I keep hoping to see that editor
you've talked about for Context. Someday. Anyhow, it seems that would aid
in the solution of a lot of problems that occur. A common IDE would give us
some common ground on which to communicate with you.

>So, it's not that big a problem -) 

I need to find an efficient way to work on this project. If I recall, when
you worked on the Metafun manual (I should say, when you are working on the
Metafun manual), I would get pieces from time to time. This would be an
indication that you work on the pieces separately before entering them in
the main document. Could I hear some comments on this? I'd love to get some
inkling on how the development of the Metafun manual was handled.

Currently, we have this project arranged as follows:

project   ----> CollegeAlgebraText.tex
product   ----> book.tex
component ----> Chapter1.tex

I don't have any intent of crafting other products (at least I don't think
so, but you may comment here if you see things to the contrary). I think
that sections of each chapter will eventually average 10-20 pages in
length. These are the basic components of development, the individual
elements that we will work on from day to day. With this in mind, does this
strategy seem better?

project   ----> CollegeAlgebraText.tex
product   ----> Chapter1.tex, Chapter2.tex, etc.
component ----> Section1.tex, Section2.tex,.... of Chapter1.tex,
                Section1.tex, Section2.tex,.... of Chapter2.tex, etc.

On my office Windows 2000 machine, when we compiled the present
Chapter1.tex last week, it was a very long compile, with a number of
windows opening and closing. I'd say easily over 2 minutes on a 700MHz
machine to get the resulting 11 pages. My aide is just learning, so there
will be a lot of write a little code, compile, write a little code,
compile, etc, so a long compile like this will quickly frustrate her.

How do I keep those windows from opening and closing (a lot of Metapost
graphs are gonna be present in these files)? What kind of run should we do
if we don't want to worry about the graphics, just see if the code compiles
properly, etc.?

Perhaps you can discuss some various compile strategies for efficient use
of our time.

Thanks.