Re: State of documentation of ConTeXt?

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

On 7/15/2014 11:59 AM, Gerben Wierda wrote:
> On 14 Jul 2014, at 19:29, Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl
> <mailto:pragma@wxs.nl>> wrote:
>
>> quite some sub-systems are described in their own manuals (fonts,
>> tables, xml, ...) and these manuals are quite up to date (and easier
>> to maintain than one big fat manual
>>
>> also, additional documentation is something that users need to
>> participate in (just pick a topic)
>>
>> even if it has high priority, that doesn't mean that those involved
>> have much free time left to do that next to their regular work (as
>> usual most development is done in spare time)
>>
>> so, patience is needed,
>
> I like ConTeXt (still do, I liked its approach when I first encountered
> it). But the project is more the ongoing private tinkering of a small
> in-crowd (that communicates with some followers).
>
> ConTeXt is managed a bit like a small group of researchers sharing a
> couple of complex and undocumented models/programs and tinkering with
> them as they go along. It’s an activity without formal design, but with
> a lot of trial-and-error/testing.
>
> Given that status (and the fact that it has had that status for over a
> /decennium/), I don’t expect it to ever become a serious product that is
> (semi-)professionally managed. I prefer content over management every
> day, but something like this needs some minimal management. That
> requires both time (=money) and capabilities. Besides, the tinkering
> researchers may not be inclined to do that, they want to tinker.
>
> BTW, you can’t be serious asking the /users/ to provide the
> documentation, can you?

Well, you need to keep this in mind:

- we are using it ourselves (already for a long time) so we depend on it 
and so we keep it going

- we spend most of our company time on development and support .. and we 
live with that

- our roadmap does *not* include getting big (with open source as 
stepping stone), *not* messing with users by selling ourselves after a 
while, and *not* splitting between 'context for users' and 'context 
professional or enterprise', so everyone gets what we have (which also 
means that documentation will always be behind!)

- we have no big projects that pay for development (from which we can 
then work on documentation) .. in fact, our projects are rather niche 
and special

- we're quite satisfied with the users (they are demanding and creative) 
... context never aimed at one-time-users

Now, we don't ask users to provide documentation, but on the other hand, 
if you look at latex, lost of documentation starts at users.

Maybe some day I find more time ...

Hans

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