Ulf Martin wrote:
> I wonder how people (esp. at Pragma) currently deal with this. What
> happens if you have a ConTeXt doc from say 1997 that compiles into the
> resp. PDF with some ConTeXt version from that time but not today
> anymore? Which ConTeXt versions does one have to keep in order to be
> able to use such a document? (A good example for this kind of trouble
> seem to be the current issues with XeTeX, but I haven't followed this in
> detail -- but it kept me away from updating my ConTeXt installation
> since December...).
>
for projects where we use relatively new features (which evolve) we use
frozen trees; actually some of this code is not even documented (simply
no time; take synchronized graphics)
with regards to commands and such ... context is just (supposed to be)
downward compatible; even kind of obsolete is still there; with regards
to different solutions to problems, we often provide control usign low
level mode indicators
concerning xetex ... keep in mind that there xetex is the moving target
(changes/extensions in interface) and to some extend this was true for
pdftex as well, but there we could silently adapt
> Also remember that Knuth originally intended TeX to be an "eternal"
> formatting system (thus we have at least the option to expand all macros
> into plain TeX and keep that as the source file).
>
plain tex is just a format and unsuitable as expanded format
well, i have some experimental code that dumps the expanded token list
into a file; nu fun ... a 50 page moderately complex doc becomes some 25
meg -)
but then, if the sole reason is to reprocess the doc ... just save the
pdf file -)
> This raises another question: is ConTeXt developed in an test driven
> way? I.e. are there test documents (including e.g. XML documents,
> bibligraphic references etc.) that have to pass comilation in order for
> changes to be published? If so, they would probably define a standard
> set of commands that could go into The ConTeXt Companion.
>
>
Sanjoy has set up an advanced test system ... so anything that you
contribute can go in there
Hans
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Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
Ridderstraat 27 | 8061 GH Hasselt | The Netherlands
tel: 038 477 53 69 | fax: 038 477 53 74 | www.pragma-ade.com
| www.pragma-pod.nl
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