Re: Mini-survey: What do you do with ConTeXt?

[Matthias Weber <matweber@indiana.edu>]

I use typesetting mainly for math:  papers,  class notes and slides.  
I started with Signum
(a wysiwyg program for the Atari, which was great), switched to  
AmsTeX , then
to LaTeX, and now to ConTeXt. I am bad at remembering macros, I wrote  
most papers
using cut & paste, and when I needed to do something in LateX that I  
couldn't look up
in a previous paper, I spent lots of time digging through the 1001  
macro packages
available for LaTeX. ConTeXt is much better here for several reasons:

i) It is much more logical, i.e. the way it should work usually  
works, and
ii) if not, there is this great email list where I can ask and  
usually learn
that ConTeXt is even more logical than I thought before.
iii) it is very easy to reuse material. I can have print and slide  
versions of class
notes almost without extra work
iv) ConTeXt is easy to learn incrementally. When I see a feature I  
like, I can incorporate it
easily, there is no need to rewrite everything using another macro  
package.


The one drawback is that my journal and collaborative papers are  
still in LateX,
because my coauthors don't speak ConTeXt, and, more significantly,  
www.arXiv.org
(preprint server) doesn't speak ConTeXt either.

Matthias


> Hi all,
>
> For the next issue of the ntg's Maps journal, Hans and I believe
> it would be nice to publish the collected responses to this simple
> question:
>
>   What do you do with ConTeXT?
>
> We think it would be nice to see all the various ways in which people
> experience ConTeXt. We are not looking for articles, in fact we really
> want just a small amount of text per user, nothing longer then you
> would normally type in an email message.
>
> One, perhaps two paragraphs that simply tell about your personal  
> experience using (or playing with) (or fighting with) (or yelling  
> at) (or staring at in bewilderment) (or revelling in) (or running  
> away from)
> ConTeXt.
>
> If you like this idea, just reply to this message. I will then
> collect and merge the responses, and finally put a pdf on-line
> somewhere.
>
> Don't be shy!
>
> Taco