[metapost] Re: MetaPost - terminally ill or just playing dead? Also New Version

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hi Michail,

>>....
> For me that changes look like "Paint and Dump" approach.

There is no change in policy intended (I was not even aware there
was a policy). The BachoTeX talk fits in this year's theme, simple
as that.

> Is metapost being prepared for fossilization?

Not any more so than I am, but: me being old and all, you never can
be sure whether or not I will remember that I've made this statement
a week from now, now can you? :-)

> The improvements you mention are late 5-7 years at least,
 > they are likely to attract as much attention in the TeX world as
 > improvements in Motif are now attracting in the world of GUI.

It is true that none of the things on that list of proposed features
is shocking, and most are long overdue. But being  negative about
that isn't helping much. I find it increasingly hard to remember
what I was doing yesterday, let alone 5-7 years ago, but I am almost
entirely certain it was not MetaPost.

I have a daytime job that has almost no relation to tex/mp
(most of the time, I write web applications), so I like the
distraction that programming for tex/mp offers. But the amount
of free time is limited, and there is a distinct lack of other
developers (let alone funding), so progress is very slow.

Besides, I don't care too much about drawing attention to
MetaPost, really. Use it or don't use it, as you want, that is
how I see it.

I happily leave the proselytising to people that are still
young and eager to do so. I attempt to do things that makes
using MetaPost a nicer experience for the people that are
already using it, nothing more.

On the detail:
> 
> OK, please, drop me a note when it comes to real coding/configuring.
> Since groff PS fonts set is under some change now, I may have
> a slighly different set of texmf files and another tfm generation script.

There will of course be development releases, beta's, and whatnot.

Even better: you can join in yourself, if you want.
The project page is:

   https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/metapost/

just register as a user and drop me a note afterwards, so I can add
you to the project.

Cheers, Taco