Am 06.09.25 um 16:45 schrieb Hans Hagen via ntg-context:
On 9/6/2025 3:38 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
Ahoi,
I’m working on the Math chapter of my ConTeXt book. As you know, this
is not my area of expertise, that’s why I try to keep it short and
mostly refer to the math manual.
What subjects do you think I should include for beginners or readers
switching from PlainTeX/LaTeX?
Probably \alignhere and \breakhere? What else is new & different?
just refer to the math manual ... maybe only mention \im for inlien math
and \startformula .. \stopformula for display .. leave it at that
Of course I got that already.
I know there are some constructs that users should avoid, e.g. dollar
notation ($math$, $$math$$) and commands that need lookahead (\over,
\atop, \above). What else?
no need to explain that ... if they use math, they can read the manual
because more is involved .. you can only confuse them
Judging from discussions on this very mailing list, I guess it makes
sense to talk about outdated/discouraged commands that some are used to.
> (Maybe an explicit “don’t do this” section in the math manual would make
> sense.)
if someone who needs math comes to context he/she is probably willing
to check out the math manual anyway
Thank you, but I don’t think that’s enough. You could say that about
several other parts of documentation, but I find a different approach is
often helpful.
Even when I know that something is in the docs, I often enough find it
hard to find and/or grasp. And in writing this book I recognized how
much of ConTeXt is not documented at all, and that’s not only some
obscure features (of which some are quite interesting) but e.g. several
setup options of common features. On this mailing lists, regularly
someone (often Wolfgang) comes up with something I never heard of.
I see the paradox that only the developer can really document a software
system like ConTeXt, but documentation should not be written by the
developer, because they tend to omit the “obvious”.
I’m glad and thankful that you wrote so much documentation. I can’t even
keep up with reading, even less understanding. Some manuals are great
(like Metafun), but some are stuck in an incomplete state (like
Graphics). The math manual goes deep into some details, but I feel it’s
lacking a bit in overview and basics; maybe that’s just my lack of
understanding.
Hraban
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