On 1/6/2022 6:47 PM, Jean-Pierre Delange via ntg-context wrote:
The question of funding computing tools is an issue : it is true in a
private situation when you want to write a manuscript with versioning
(you have to know how it works), but it is more relevant within an
academic field of research : who wants to buy days of education for
scholars for their learning in computing or for XML Oxygen and other
tools ?
there was a time when publishers did typesetting and printing themselves
in which case they might have some interest in tools but afaik that time
is long gone (and i admit that i never met a publisher where investing
in know how and technology was part of the corporate identity (there
were some but by the time context showed up most large publishers
started outsourcing to far-far-away and those interested in technologies
left), at least not one that invest beyond a specific product and even
then falling back on tools like tex is a last resort ... do publisheres
even have departments that do some kind of resaearch at all? i admire
those working at publishers who were willing to take the risk (we dealt
with some) but mergers, buyouts by crooky strip-down-and-lay-off
investors etc doesn't help dedicated employees long term
using tools like tex really depends on individuals who know what they're
dealing with and can make convincing use case examples (and then explain
thet investing time / money beforehand pays back a lot long term (which
is possible in non publishing contexts but publishers go for short term
which means pay per page (every time) instead of pay per project (and
some maintanance)
when i look at some publications i even wonder if the big ones even care
about quality at all (folks at the newspaper that we read here figured
out that using grayish fonts is best, that hyphenation doesn't need
checking, that inter character spacing and extrems expansion looks
great, or: soon we migh ditch it because it became hard to read).
so ... i suppose authors are pretty much on their own and maybe not even
seen as (human) assets any longer by publishers ... but then, i never
(will) publish, so who knows ...
and from the perspective of context (and development) it is therefore
users (who of course can represent an organization) is what we focus on
Hans
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