Interesting interview

["Thomas A. Schmitz" <thomas.schmitz@uni-bonn.de>]

Hi all,

thought this might be of interest to some of you: the tug website has  
just published an interview with Will Robertson ( http://www.tug.org/ 
interviews/interview-files/will-robertson.html ), whom some of you  
may know from his work on XeLaTeX. Will is the author of the fontspec  
package which offers lots of very advanced options for choosing and  
switching fonts in XeTeX. There was one passage that I found quite  
interesting:

> This leads me into a few words about where I think the big problems  
> of LaTeX lie. Because it's obvious that it is much harder to learn  
> than it could be. And the crux of the problem, the long and the  
> short of it, is that the LaTeX kernel has been intentionally  
> restricted to the functionality originally designed for it. Now,  
> this is a good thing, by and large. Standards need to be frozen in  
> order for them to be adhered to. But it's past time to move on and  
> create a new standard. There are fast approaching competitors that  
> will eventually overtake LaTeX if we continue to stagnate. (Not to  
> mention ConTeXt, which has surpassed LaTeX in essentially every  
> area. Maybe the solution is just for everyone to switch to that.)

I mean, we all know that this is true, but it's great that a fairly  
well-known member of the LaTeX crowd says so as well.

All best

Thomas