context meeting

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

Hi,

I really enjoyed myself at last weeks's meeting. Mojca and friends have 
done a great job. In addition to a filled up program we had a wonderful 
day going around Slovenia (incredibly silent outside the facilities and 
a sky full of stars, something impossible in nl), terrific bonfires, 
texies walking on ropes between trees, the highest density of laptops 
per tex conference, one of the most relaxed tex conference 
wrapups/endings ever, and ... there are already suggestions floating 
around for up to three locations for context meetings after next year 
(2009 will most likely be in delft, nl).

During the conference a few things came up that are worth noticing

- the minimals are a hit, they work, are used and we have installers for 
each platform; there are ideas on how to improve things further.

- it will be possible to update upcoming tex lives with the minimals 
(norbert implemented the infrastructure for this and the minimal 
maintainers will set up a package generator); this means that we have 
nicely isolated distributions (reference implementations) as well as 
perfect integration in the mainstream distribution

- the wiki will get an upgrade;some ideas already get implemented but 
more will happen

- there are interesting and ambitious ideas with regards to math (and 
related fonts), so you can expect something in that area the upcoming years

- there is a set if tutorials by willi and aditya that was tried out 
during this conference and which will be perfected so that in the future 
we have a nice beginners package (although some topics went beyond the 
beginners level   and are of use for more experienced users as well); 
other presentations given can be turned into tutorials as well (like 
those on making presentations)

- those present were either already using mkiv or were willing to change 
from mkii to mkiv soon; as a consequence the group agreed on a 
functional freeze for mkii (apart from bug fixes and simple extensions); 
   this will make development easier

I probably forget a few things so others might correct me ...

Hans

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