Introducing myself

[David van Diepen <david@diepenvan.nl>]

Dear everybody,

I don't have a particular question for the moment but I thought it
would be nice to introduce myself as I have just joined the email list.

My name is David van Diepen, 49 years old. I am a process engineer. I
have two children.

A few months ago my son had to prepare his thesis and that's when I
thought latex would be applicable. Very many years ago I learned to
work with latex during my education, so I thought that it wouldn't be
too hard to help him out with that. At the end of the day it actually
was hard work to get to grisps again but after 10 days we had prepared
a very good-looking thesis and that's what counts.

In the line of my work I regularly have to prepare technical documents.
So I thought it's perhaps a good idea to start using latex for that
too. My teamleader has given me some space to do that even though latex
is completely unsupported at work, so I'm doing all that from home. The
first document was recieved quite wel actually. 

As you'll probably understand my collegues have difficulty appreciating
the value of a properly designed document. Everybody seems to agree to
a similar and often poor appearance. I am the son of a graphic
designer, so maybe that's why I do care what the documents I produce
look like. For instance, I have a couple of nice books with examples of
typefaces (letterproeven) lying about that I inherited, these are an
inspiration too. Also I think a well designed document conveys the
content better. So I'm glad that I am allowed start with this
development even though the benefits are very abstract still.

That's when I thought whether it would be a good idea to continue
investing time in latex, or whether it would be better to go with the
new developments, that being the luatex/context combination. So I
thought I should at least give it a try. 

That try was actually harder than I expected. On hindsight I think it
could have been easier if I had found the right channels to
documentation sooner. There is a lot of information on context to be
found but that includes a lot of information that's already superseded.
So a couple of times it took me quite some time before I realized there
was a newer and easier method. Anyway I'm well on my way now with my
first technical ducument in context. The thing I like most about
context is that the structure makes good sense. In latex there have
been so many additions troughout the years that it has become quite
messy really. In the longer run I think the greater array of
possibilities is going to pay off for my purposes too.

So I would like to thank you all for allowing me to use this great
software. I expect that I may post questions in the future because I am
planning to try more things. For now it's maybe a good idea if I put
some contributions in the wiki. As a newby I have struggled at some
points and maybe some howto's with that perspective can be helpful for
other newcomers.

For now, thanks again, yours faithfully, David



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