Re: ConTeXt versioning model critique

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

Ulf Martin wrote:
> I wonder how people (esp. at Pragma) currently deal with this. What
> happens if you have a ConTeXt doc from say 1997 that compiles into the
> resp. PDF with some ConTeXt version from that time but not today
> anymore? Which ConTeXt versions does one have to keep in order to be
> able to use such a document? (A good example for this kind of trouble
> seem to be the current issues with XeTeX, but I haven't followed this in
> detail -- but it kept me away from updating my ConTeXt installation
> since December...).
>   
for projects where we use relatively new features (which evolve) we use 
frozen trees; actually some of this code is not even documented (simply 
no time; take synchronized graphics)

with regards to commands and such ... context is just (supposed to be) 
downward compatible; even kind of obsolete is still there; with regards 
to  different solutions to  problems, we often provide control usign low 
level mode indicators

concerning xetex ... keep in mind that there xetex is the moving target 
(changes/extensions  in interface) and to some extend this was true for 
pdftex as well, but there we could silently adapt  
> Also remember that Knuth originally intended TeX to be an "eternal"
> formatting system (thus we have at least the option to expand all macros
> into plain TeX and keep that as the source file).
>   
plain tex is just a format and unsuitable as expanded format

well, i have some experimental code that dumps the expanded token list 
into a file; nu fun ... a 50 page moderately complex doc becomes some 25 
meg -)

but then, if the sole reason is to reprocess the doc ... just save the 
pdf file -)

> This raises another question: is ConTeXt developed in an test driven
> way? I.e. are there test documents (including e.g. XML documents,
> bibligraphic references etc.) that have to pass comilation in order for
> changes to be published? If so, they would probably define a standard
> set of commands that could go into The ConTeXt Companion.
>
>   
Sanjoy has set up an advanced test system ... so anything that you 
contribute can go in there

Hans

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