[NTG-context] Context against XSL

[Taco Hoekwater]

Hans Hagen <pragma at wxs.nl> wrote:

> I'm on and off implementing an fo engine (foxet) and run into fuzziness 
> with regards to the specs (a bad omen is that that there i could not 
> find a good manual and the ones i have are made up rather poorly, which 
> indicated that we're not so much dealing with high end typesetting, but 
> with regular batchprocessing of not too complex documents).
 
The longer one has to read in the XSL-FO specification, the more one 
resents having to do so. If you are lookiing for a road towards creating 
pdf documents, then ConTeXt is like an actual freeway with perhaps a few 
potholes and missing roadsigns, where XSL-FO is a set of directions on how 
to create a jungle road, written down by a civil engineer with terrible
handwriting mirroring a quite chaotic mind who nonetheless insists on 
doing everything "the right way"(tm). 

Various people have been busy trying to build that road according to the 
specifications, and some of the toll (payfare) roads are in fact reasonably 
close. I'm speaking with a certain fondness in my voice really, because I 
am also busy implementing a (commercial) fo engine using ConTeXt.

Greetings, Taco