LaTeX vs Context
Gary Denrael
begin with Contex (Context?) rather than LaTeX. Not being familiar with
the former, and also just starting to learn TeX environments, can someone
give me some suggestions as to the differences between them?
Joost Kremers
check out this page: <http://berend.gameren.nl/tex/>
the context home page, which is linked there, does not seem to exist
anymore. when i tried to access it a month or two ago, it was down,
and it still is now...
--
Joost Kremers
Running SuSE7.1 and loving it!
remove XYZ to send mail
Giuseppe Bilotta
ConTeXt and LaTeX have a similar "structured" approach to TeX: they
tend to organize the document into "objects" (called "environments" in
LaTex, start/stop pairs in ConTeXt).
The main differences between the two are:
[C1] ConTeXt provides a very integrated environment, has (and needs)
very few extensions, and is highly customizable without the need to
jump through hoops.
[L1] The LaTeX kernel provides basic functionality, but most of LaTeX
is provided by "external" packages that don't always integrate well.
Customization of the style and layout is achieved through lots of
packages with sometimes similar functinality.
[C2] ConTeXt "adapts" and exploits fully the TeX engine it is run
with: if you use pdf-e-TeX instead of Knuth's TeX you gain in
robustness, speed, efficiency (and actually features).
[L2] LaTeX doesn't.
[C3] ConTeXt has multilingual interface capabilities: you can enter
commands in e.g. Dutch instead of English [but you cannot mix
documents written with different interfaces].
[L3] LaTeX doesn't.
[C4] ConTeXt is parameter driven, like in
\startcolumns[n=2,tolerance=tolerant,balance=yes]
[L4] LaTeX is somewhat more cryptic (except for recent packages using
the keyval support package)
[C5] ConTeXt is slower.
[L5] LaTeX is faster.
[C6] ConTeXt is bigger.
[L6] LaTeX is smaller.
[C7] ConTeXt needs Perl to get to full throttle
[L7] LaTeX doesn't, but sometimes it relies on external executables to
provide some functionality.
[C8] There are not a lot of ConTeXt users.
[L8] Almost everyone uses or has used LaTeX, at least once in their
lifetime.
[C9] ConTeXt is available at www.pragma-ade.com, but the server is
currently down (mirror at: www.ntg.nl/context)
[L9] LaTeX is included in every TeX distribution I know of.
--
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta
Axiom I of the Giuseppe Bilotta
theory of IT:
Anything is better than MS
Giuseppe Bilotta
> On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 05:47:39 GMT, Gary Denrael wrote:
> > I just saw in another group a suggestion for someone learning TeX that they
> > begin with Contex (Context?) rather than LaTeX. Not being familiar with
> > the former, and also just starting to learn TeX environments, can someone
> > give me some suggestions as to the differences between them?
>
> check out this page: <http://berend.gameren.nl/tex/>
>
> the context home page, which is linked there, does not seem to exist
> anymore. when i tried to access it a month or two ago, it was down,
> and it still is now...
Yup. Server problem, and it's driving Hans crazy. Mirror available at
Robert Goulding
>
> [C1] ConTeXt provides a very integrated environment, has (and needs)
> very few extensions, and is highly customizable without the need to
> jump through hoops.
> [L1] The LaTeX kernel provides basic functionality, but most of LaTeX
> is provided by "external" packages that don't always integrate well.
> Customization of the style and layout is achieved through lots of
> packages with sometimes similar functinality.
Does it support bibtex or have some other means of managing citations?
I couldn't find any mention of this the last time I looked at the
ConTeXt documentation.
--
Society of Fellows,
Princeton University,
Princeton NJ 08540
Giuseppe Bilotta
BibTeX is supported through the (experimental AFAIK) m-bib module,
written by Taco Hoekwater.
Michele Dondi
<obl...@freemail.it> wrote:
>[C6] ConTeXt is bigger.
>[L6] LaTeX is smaller.
But if we consider LaTeX + all packages, or at least all the most used
ones (geometry, fancyhdr,...), are the differences in size still so
massive?
Michele
--
Liberta' va cercando, ch'e' si' cara,
Come sa chi per lei vita rifiuta.
[Dante Alighieri, Purg. I, 71-72]
I am my own country - United States Confederate of Me!
[Pennywise, "My own country"]
Robin Fairbairns
>On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:36:26 GMT, Giuseppe Bilotta
><obl...@freemail.it> wrote:
>>[C6] ConTeXt is bigger.
>>[L6] LaTeX is smaller.
>
>But if we consider LaTeX + all packages, or at least all the most used
>ones (geometry, fancyhdr,...), are the differences in size still so
>massive?
i think so (not that i've used context much). it's clear that hans
didn't consider himself constrained by space considerations in writing
context, in the way the the latex team do. this is fine: space is
"cheap" in modern systems, and context has no "historical" users with
existing documents and small computers.
likewise, context would be intolerably slow on the sort of machine i
started using tex on (a moderate vax 11/780), but no-one in their
right mind is going to try to use it on anything like that.
--
Robin Fairbairns, Cambridge -- rf10 at cam dot ac dot uk
Giuseppe Bilotta
> On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:36:26 GMT, Giuseppe Bilotta
> <obl...@freemail.it> wrote:
>
> >[C6] ConTeXt is bigger.
> >[L6] LaTeX is smaller.
>
> But if we consider LaTeX + all packages, or at least all the most used
> ones (geometry, fancyhdr,...), are the differences in size still so
> massive?
I wouldn't know, but I would suspect so, because of the somewhat
convoluted TeX programming involved in ConTeXt (due partly to the
multilingual interface, partly to the fact that lots of compatibility
issues are resolved, and this means more coding, usually) and because
most commands are defined with *two* command sequence *at least*
(again, due to the multilingua interface). The ConTeXt format goes
around 4.5Mb ... and then you would want to add the MetaFun memory
format (another 370K).
Ok. Maybe if you added *all* the packages LaTeX would be larger. But
of course you can work with a "stripped down" LaTeX. Not so with
ConTeXt.
Jules Bean
> [C9] ConTeXt is available at www.pragma-ade.com, but the server is
> currently down (mirror at: www.ntg.nl/context)
> [L9] LaTeX is included in every TeX distribution I know of.
ConTeXt is hard to type ;-)
ConTeXt is in teTeX, I think... so it's pretty widely distributed.
Jules
Robin Fairbairns
>Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
>> [C9] ConTeXt is available at www.pragma-ade.com, but the server is
>> currently down (mirror at: www.ntg.nl/context)
>> [L9] LaTeX is included in every TeX distribution I know of.
>
>ConTeXt is hard to type ;-)
naah. context. context. context. dead easy.
>ConTeXt is in teTeX, I think... so it's pretty widely distributed.
i think it's in most modern distributions, in fact. even in miktex,
hence the blathering from the guy who couldn't find the web site and
couldn't work out which perl-before-ms distribution to use.
Giuseppe Bilotta
> Michele Dondi <bik....@tiscalinet.it> wrote:
> >On Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:36:26 GMT, Giuseppe Bilotta
> ><obl...@freemail.it> wrote:
> >>[C6] ConTeXt is bigger.
> >>[L6] LaTeX is smaller.
> >
> >But if we consider LaTeX + all packages, or at least all the most used
> >ones (geometry, fancyhdr,...), are the differences in size still so
> >massive?
>
> i think so (not that i've used context much). it's clear that hans
> didn't consider himself constrained by space considerations in writing
> context, in the way the the latex team do.
Definitely.
If you look into the sources, though, you can see that optimization
(for both speed and size) was done. Of course, maybe it saved a total
2Kb on a 4.5 Mb system ...
> likewise, context would be intolerably slow on the sort of machine i
> started using tex on (a moderate vax 11/780), but no-one in their
> right mind is going to try to use it on anything like that.
Provided it is possible to load it ... :-)