Re: upto current

[Otared Kavian <otared@gmail.com>]

On 19 mars 2013, at 19:47, Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu> wrote:

> […]Although most active users use ConTeXt standalone and are willing to update frequently, TL still plays an important role in introducing new users to ConTeXt. An experienced TeX user who wants to try ConTeXt is more likely to try ConTeXt distributed as part of TL rather than ConTeXt standalone. When there are serious bugs with ConTeXt TL, it gives the impression that ConTeXt is not a mature macro package.

Hi,

To support what suggests Aditya, I would like to say that the main issue with the current state of ConTeXt in TeXLive (either mkii or mkiv) is that most « lambda » users of TeX whom I know in the mathematics world and in accademia, that is:
	--- users who are not familiar with what should be changed in TeXLive, 
	--- users who don't even know TeX and LaTeX are not synonyms, 
	--- users who don't know that there exist another environments and macro packages for typesetting tex-files, 
	--- users who don't know that using ConTeXt one can do better typesetting, and that it has better features, 
all those users are not going to install a stand alone ConTeXt. They would use TeXLive, they would try everything in it, but all they want is to write a paper and typeset it with a TeX package with a single command (or in the case of Mac users, from within TeXShop or another editor). Most of them do not even know where TeXLive sits on their computer, and they don't know how to install something new.
Unfortunately, the ConTeXt in TeXLive does not work out of the box: the user has to issue a few commands before he can typeset a file with ConTeXt, either mkii or mkiv (for instance on my installation of TeXLive, after having issued a few commands, which I don't remember right now, I can use ConTeXt with LuaTeX, that is mkiv, but I cannot use mkii).

For my part I have been advocating ConTeXt among my colleagues (especially for course materials and books, since submitting a paper to a journal is essentially impossible if it is a ConTeXt file). Most of them agree that ConTeXt gives a much better result, but when it comes to how to use ConTeXt from TeXLive they are afraid and don't go further. For some of them I have installed a stand alone ConTeXt, but most of them do not update their installation, since they would not use the most recent features or improvements (for most of day to day typesettings, when one does not use complexe features, even a beta version is sufficiently stable for such users).

So my pledge is this: make any stable version of ConTeXt in TeXLive so that it works and typesets a tex-file « out of the box », without needing to issue any command other than:
	context myfile.tex
This is the case with LaTeX inside TeXLive, and so I cannot see any strong reason for ConTeXt not having the same behavior.

Best regards: OKs
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