From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/34262 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ulf Martin Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: The ConTeXt Companion Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:27 +0200 Message-ID: <4620F267.9030301@web.de> References: <46F27D63-3A0F-44A1-BE96-A7F975C832BD@ensta.fr> <83E3B53E-549B-4ABB-A661-34FBD35C49B4@jhnet.nl> <461F5E11.3070704@web.de> Reply-To: ulfmartin@web.de, mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1176564351 17294 80.91.229.12 (14 Apr 2007 15:25:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:25:51 +0000 (UTC) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Sat Apr 14 17:25:43 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1Hck8D-0005t4-J5 for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:41 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E6B620003; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:41 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 22656-01-3; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:33 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6E07B1FFF1; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:33 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8C2371FFE5 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:31 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 22656-01-2 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:28 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from fmmailgate03.web.de (fmmailgate03.web.de [217.72.192.234]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id D923D1FFE1 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:28 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from smtp06.web.de (fmsmtp06.dlan.cinetic.de [172.20.5.172]) by fmmailgate03.web.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 65ABE73868C0 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:28 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from [212.202.210.43] (helo=[192.168.1.2]) by smtp06.web.de with asmtp (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (WEB.DE 4.108 #197) id 1Hck80-0002MF-00 for ntg-context@ntg.nl; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:25:28 +0200 User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Macintosh/20070221) In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.2.0 X-Sender: ulfmartin@web.de X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX18acCo37CNZIqTXllLoigp+6RHTc0UApWZSOV7o IPSYJdV3AUcNwf/TSeOwG1bSBivJ1C3UGqZc5Meyis00gnSK8G el2+uOXw8= X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:34262 Archived-At: Patrick Gundlach schrieb: >> Now, if we had "The ConTeXt Companion" ... > > ... ConTeXt would probably stabilize, which IMHO is not a good thing. > One thing I really love ConTeXt for is the speed new techniques are > adopted (pdf features, luatex,...) One day we might have a ConTeXt > MKII book for those who are afraid of swithing to pdftex2. I don't think that The ConTeXt Companion (TCC) would halt ConTeXt development. The LaTeX Companion (TLC) didn't do that for LaTeX. Now, TLC was in 1st edition from 1994 to 2004, meaning that it was quite outdated in the end (one reason for me, btw, to look around wether there are other options to do teXing, and discovering ConTeXt). But it kept the reference situation in a well defined three step state: (1) look into one of the small LaTeX guides; (2) look into TLC; (3) look into package docs, internet etc. (which is, of course messy). My experience is that one rarely needed to go past (2). With ConTeXt there is, of course, the "excursion" (equiv. to (1)) and the manual (2), but many important issues (the phantastic XML processing capabilities, bibliography stuff, typography, font management,...) are not quite complete or covered elsewhere (i.e. situation 3). Ulf