ConTeXt name/branding

[Scott Steele <scottlsteele@gmail.com>]

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Sidenote: If anyone has ever considered changing the name of the ConTeXt
project, I'd like to support that. Name consistency is important, but there
are two unnecessary problems that the current name creates.

The first is that the unusual capitalization and pronunciation are a barrier
to new users. I've used macro packages in the TeX family for about four
years now (though it seems much longer! I can't believe for how long I was
putting out such ugly papers!), but I'm now consciously trying to remember
to pronounce them as tecks, latecks, zeetecks, conteckst, etc, and to type
them as Tex, Latex, Xetex, and Context (outside of this message/forum). The
odd capitalization doen't win fans among people who appreciate typographic
tradition, and the pronunciation requires that, instead of explaining first
how powerful and useful these systems are, one explain the Greek chi and
Donald Knuth. It doesn't give a good impression when one's first exposure to
TeX involves being told one is wrong in how one pronounces a word that is
less than 40 years old (The same goes for many open source projects).
Further, if the name is brought up in conversation and piques the interest
of a potential user, they will have a difficult time later searching for it
when they type in contekt or conteckt.

The second problem with the ConTeXt name is its shared spelling with
context. When I google context and font, I get so many pages imploring me to
consider the context of my document when choosing between Arial, Times New
Roman, and Comic Sans. Many of the things I'll be searching for while using
ConTeXt yield thousands of irrelevant pages because of how context can pop
up in so many topics that share major keywords with the typesetting process.

Of course, I myself am in no position to advocate a name change, and if the
two issues I listed are the price for having a cutting-edge typesetting
system, then I'm still a pretty happy camper. But if any of the people who
have actually worked really hard to put this together have ever thought
about bringing up a branding change, here's my two pence.

Scott

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