> Do you mean like Scrivener on the Mac? I don’t know. I tried Context, then TeX, than went back to Context. Now also Metapost. Sorry for beeing biased, but I really like the programer approach to computers.
> What, in any case, constitutes a universal layout approach? Does > one exist? (...) I don’t think we need something universal. But there is a lot of common guidelines for most things. For instance, text, music, chess boards and pictures all have to fit or fill their place in a page, and all can have a common main font to be used. > Yet he (...) sees the value of maintaining a knowledge base that > is predictable when it runs on a program that can pass the trip > test. Actually, I’m trying to show my dad he can trust a computer to typeset his class notes, if we use the right tools (i.e., Context plus Metapost instead of what was used for his books in the 90’s, when just a small change would ruin everything). But I’ve just used ‘ϕ’ in a math formula for one of his papers and Context silently ignores it. I’m sure there's a good reason for that. But TeX is predictable when you write a default TeX style document. If you leave it, you have to understand a lot of hidden issues, and a dummy user like me will never know if all of them have been taken care of. > Lose that for the sake of innovation, and you can lose real > knowledge. And what shall we say for troff, which still > possesses an arcane sort of longevity? Troff? I really miss the days of my old TK3000 text editor back in the 80’s. It's great to use 80% of your time thinking about what you want to write and 20% about typesetting. Today it's 4% writing, 2% typesetting and 94% looking over thousands of pages of wiki documentation. I still think Context is really great, but I’ll never try to do something that’s not done in a default installation again. Or try to understand why sometimes [n=x] works but [n = x] doesn’t. > (...) you can be creating documents for all the world to see > even if you are out in the bush with a generator and mosquito > netting. I wrote my résume a few months ago, and sent it to a few companies, just to know a lot of time later that most of them could not open it, since it was a PDF revision 1.8 instead of 1.3 (or something like that). > So TeX's stability has the interesting potential side effect of > giving a voice to the voiceless. Our cast-off hardware becomes a > window for freedom of speech and expression, (...) Sure. I would like to have something simpler than TeX, not more complex or hardware eater. > There are places where people still go outside to relieve > themselves, (...) Like myself :) > Some folks think abstractly and can whack out macros like Paul > Bunyan chops wood. Some think visually (...) I can only think abstractly. But TeX macros are a lot less abstract than they could be. I believe DEK says they were never supposed to be used the way they are. > DEK (...) brought all his respect and research regarding > longstanding, tried and true typographical traditions to his > writing of TeX. Sure. You can’t miss that even if you understand nothing about typesetting (like myself). After using TeX for a while, it’s almost painfull to look at text printed by usual office tools. >> Maurício a écrit : >> > Hi, >> > >> > Just because I'm curious: how could a typesetting system like TeX >> > be if it was created today? I've tried google and wikipedia, and >> > all I found different from TeX is a system called 'Lout', but it >> > seems dead. >> > >> > (...) ___________________________________________________________________________________ If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki! maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context webpage : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net archive : https://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/ wiki : http://contextgarden.net ___________________________________________________________________________________
