Re: Ideas for restructuring the ConTeXt garden?

["Thomas Schmitz" <tschmit1@uni-bonn.de>]

On Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:35:54 -0800
  Henry House <hajhouse@hajhouse.org> wrote:

> 
> I strongly agree that sample set-up code (ideally 
>well-commented so that
> it also serves as a tutorial of sorts) to reproduce the 
>style of LaTeX
> would be helpful. The appearance of LaTeX documents 
>isn't perfect but it
> produces reasonably high-quality results suitable for 
>complex technical
> documents right out of the box of the box without any 
>tweaking, whereas
> ConTeXt requires (at least it did for me) some trouble 
>to set it up for
> the first time. To some extent this is not because of 
>the merit of the
> LaTeX design itself but the fact that it is familiar and 
>therefore
> highly readable to someone used to reading it. It is 
>also the point of
> departure for a LaTeX user wanting to convert to using 
>ConTeXt; hence, i
> would imagine many such people would prefer to tweak a 
>LaTeX-like
> document appearance to better suit their needs rather 
>than starting with
> something quite different. Certainly, this was the case 
>for me; being
> basically satisfied with my LaTeX documents but wanting 
>more control and
> the option to use the advanced features of ConTeXt. 
>Having sample set-up
> code that emulated LaTeX would have eased the initial 
>transition for me.
> 

Pardon my French, but this thread is getting less and less 
useful, probably because it addresses too many issues at a 
time. It is rapidly degenerating from a "how to 
restructure the garden" into a "things I wish others would 
do so my life becomes easier." If someone says "I added a 
section to the wiki which explains which ConTeXt settings 
will give a document equivalent to LaTeX XXX class," fine 
- I would consider this superfluous, but it may help some 
people. But even strongly agreeing that somebody else 
should write a tutorial isn't getting any work done. And 
the assumption that most or all ConTeXt users are, at 
their heart, LaTeX renegades is not true, I think. Many 
advanced users haven't used LaTeX ever or in a long time 
and wouldn't want to waste their time on learning it just 
for the sake of such a comparison.

Sorry for being so blunt, but I think this will be more 
helpful if we stay focussed.

Thomas
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