From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/42823 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Aditya Mahajan Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: cont-enp.pdf on lulu Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:44:01 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: References: <200807212037.06180.john@wexfordpress.com> <5D9E79AF-5662-493B-B1E5-8086D472FCF0@rna.nl> <20080727124006947755.7b247440@gmail.com> <488DD5B4.5020205@wxs.nl> <488E2DD6.6080001@wxs.nl> Reply-To: mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1217335282 1322 80.91.229.12 (29 Jul 2008 12:41:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:41:22 +0000 (UTC) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Tue Jul 29 14:42:11 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KNoWp-0003HG-AO for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:42:11 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id A48E11FE0E; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:41:11 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 04111-02-8; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:40:23 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id BCEF21FDFB; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:40:22 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55F721FDF8 for ; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:40:19 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 04111-02-7 for ; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:39:44 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from tombraider.mr.itd.umich.edu (smtp.mail.umich.edu [141.211.93.161]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2CD561FE01 for ; Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:39:43 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: FROM adi-laptop.local (c-68-40-40-75.hsd1.mi.comcast.net [68.40.40.75]) BY tombraider.mr.itd.umich.edu ID 488F0F8B.8C8E2.20185 ; 29 Jul 2008 08:39:39 -0400 In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Alpine 1.00 (DEB 882 2007-12-20) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:42823 Archived-At: Hi Gerben, On Tue, 29 Jul 2008, Gerben Wierda wrote: > This should be based on (imo) merging the content of the excursion and > the manual. Here (and sometime earlier in the thread) you have suggested that you find the scattered documentation of ConTeXt confusing and would like to see an exhaustive manual. I agree with that in principle, but still believe that excursion and the manual should be separate. The manual can be a superset of excursion, but there needs to be "beginner's manual". If there is a exhaustive manual, it will be *huge*. An exhaustive manual on math will be of the size of a book; so would an exhaustive manual on metapost/mp-lib (think of an updated metafun manual). I can also imagine an exhaustive manual for fonts to be big (how do we handle fonts for lua/xetex/pdftex; how do we handle fonts for different scripts, etc.); and fairly large manuals for floats (three four mechanism for tables, about 20 ways to move around floats, etc.), critical editions (I don't know the status of the proposed module), bib module (the user manual for biblatex, which is similar in spirit to bib module, is huge), etc. So, if we want exhaustive documentation and a beginner's manual, I see that we only have the option of expanding on the excursion to have an upto date beginner's manual, expanding on the manual to have an upto date (but not exhaustive) user manual, and have a series of specialized exhaustive manuals. But that will still mean that the documentation is scattered. The way I see it, we can update the documentation, but not really solve the problem of scattered documentation :-( Aditya ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________