[metapost] Does MetaPost catch on?

[Stephan Hennig]

Am 03.09.2010 07:07, schrieb Dirk Laurie:
> On Thu, Sep 02, 2010 at 10:53:34PM +0200, Stephan Hennig wrote:
>>> On 2 September 2010 Stephan Hennig wrote:
>>>    >   troff + MetaPost bundle would fill the gap.
>> I haven't find the time to learn troff, yet I think the learning curve
>> is less steep than TeX's.
> In other words, you are justifying your prejudices by exhibiting
> your ignorance.
>
> This whole thread is utter Quatsch.

Thanks for contributing your valuable thoughts to this thread!  Letting 
the rude tone aside[1], there's no point in the whole thread exactly 
why?  Because I don't know enough about troff to think about it?  Come 
on!  This thread isn't about troff first and foremost, but if there's 
anything that can be done about MetaPost to attract more users, within 
TeX world and from outside.  My idea was about a stand-alone MetaPost 
distribution containing a full typesetter other than TeX.  The only 
alternative to TeX that came to mind was troff---even if I'm not yet a 
troff user.  The nice thing about troff is its small footprint.  That 
way people that don't want to use TeX for typesetting documents (yet) 
don't need to download and install several hundreds of Megabytes to try 
out MetaPost.

Despite your short mail, I suppose you want to say all is well with 
MetaPost and the MetaPost community.  I don't agree and I think there's 
lots of room for improvement.  That's a good thing.  What I don't think 
is good is the number of users and active developers that do these 
improvements.  I'm very grateful to Taco and Hans for the efforts they 
put into a tool I love to use.  The way I try to give back is by 
co-maintaining the manual, which is challenging when it comes to the 
dark corners of MetaPost, since on top of my troff ignorance I don't 
have a MetaFont background, too.  But I hope the net effect of my 
contributions plus questions is positive for them.

Is the mail subject too polemic?  Maybe.  As you know, it's borrowed 
from Dave Crossland's TUGboat article referring to MetaFont.  But as 
I've written above, I'm not just polemicising, but trying to (let 
others) make MetaPost better by giving back (my time).

Best regards,
Stephan Hennig

[1]  As this thread is pointless, does that mean I don't have to read 
another reply from you?  I'd be grateful!