[texhax] Latex: dumbing down? (fwd)

[Aditya Mahajan]

On Sun, 27 Aug 2006, Victor Ivrii wrote:

> I definitely would like to learn some context and while I can find
> manual I cannot find samples. Are some context .tex files floating
> around?

Sure. Check out

http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Sample_documents

and also past issues of practex journal

http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/archive.html

If you are feeling adventurous, sources of context manuals are also 
available.

http://context.aanhet.net/svn/manuals/

or

svn://ctx.pragma-ade.nl/manuals

> Still, I am afraid that the fate of Plain TeX is sealed (no
> indexing/automatic numbering capacities) and Context is probably
> doomed as well. I migrated by myself from AMSTeX to LaTeX few years
> ago and while frustrated that I lost few things I believe I gained
> more. Context may be way better than LaTeX but sheer user numbers and
> acceptance in journals favor LaTeX over Context.

True. Many journal only accept a latex file. Hopefully, if the number 
of users of context increases, the situation can change.

> "God is always on the side of the big battalions".
>
> Then why to bother to learn Context? For me the answer is simple: I
> like to learn new things (as long as they are not coming from Redmont
> :-), if I want to produce PDF the above arguments do not work for me,
> and actually I believe that learning (at least a bit of) Context will
> help understand LaTeX better. O may be what will come after...

If you want to give context a serious thought, browsing through the 
sources is invaluable.

http://source.contextgarden.net/

Most source files have examples in comments. So, if you are wondering 
what a particular command can do, search for its name and read the 
text before its definition.

Aditya