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So far, from what I hear about ConTeXt, it sounds like the solution to many of the major problems in LaTeX (perhaps all of those that can be solved at all). It supports grid typesetting (which is supposed to be very difficult in TeX --- no idea how the ConTeXt team managed it), absolute positioning of elements (layers), PDF/X support, XML parser etc. It is built from the ground up with a dynamic programming language (Lua), unlike LaTeX whose more limited expl3 language is not even finished yet. Many of the issues that LaTeX3 promises to solve in perhaps a decade from now have solutions right now over in ConTeXt. People say its internals are not very well documented, but that is hardly an issue for an end-user like me. Also, the fact that it is still in development does not seem to affect its user interface very much.

But given the fact that ConTeXt still has a much smaller user base, something (other than just conservatism) must have prevented people from switching. Is there something LaTeX can do that ConTeXt cannot?

IMO, availability of packages cannot be the whole reason, since most users of LaTeX AFAIK stick to a small selection of "standard" packages that provide them with all of the most necessary features, and whose authors communicate with each other to avoid clashes. Might be that ConTeXt does not have packages for setting up Su Dokus, but that is hardly what makes people stick to LaTeX.

Gaussler
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    I don't think the question is answerable in this form – David Carlisle May 09 '15 at 10:13
  • Isn't the bold part quite answerable. – Gaussler May 09 '15 at 10:14
  • Isn't LuaTeX written in C? – Johannes_B May 09 '15 at 10:29
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    the bold part is like asking if you prefer blue or red it's a classic example of something the site guidelines suggest should be closed as "opinion based" – David Carlisle May 09 '15 at 10:34
  • I wanted to ask about features, nor pretences. Corrected the bold part according to this. – Gaussler May 09 '15 at 11:09
  • Both can deal with these problems. What you are asking is which one implemented the most. And the answer depends on time. Next year maybe L3 will implement stuff and this is going to be obsolete. It's a matter of voluntary effort not the inherent shortcomings of formats. – percusse May 09 '15 at 11:30
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    If you are a graduate student in mathematics, physics, or (parts of) engineering, then you must learn latex to be able to submit papers to journals. None of the mainstream journals accept context. So, the return for the time invested in learning context is much less than that of learning latex. – Aditya May 09 '15 at 14:25
  • Your observation that context has a smaller user base than (xe/lua)latex is correct, but it doesn't follow from that (as you imply with your boldfaced question) that this is due to the limitations of context. As an example, I have a very good reason for not using context: it is simply because the user base is small. Latex is complicated enough that most people can't really figure out how to do everything on their own. We need help from others. But when there are so few context users out there to help you, you'd have a much harder time getting that help if you used context. – Sverre May 09 '15 at 17:03
  • The issue of the chicken and egg. – Gaussler May 09 '15 at 17:06
  • @Gaussler Nah, I'd rather call it a case of the network effect. – Sverre May 09 '15 at 18:45
  • It is a shame, for ConTeXt seems like an extremely promising format, having solved so many TeX issues already. – Gaussler May 09 '15 at 18:54
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    I don't think such questions should be put on hold, as they are crucial to new users, even if too broad. If you don't know LaTeX yet, just forget it (unless you publish in journals which ask for LaTeX). There is very little of what can be done in LaTeX that cannot be done in ConTeXt (if at all). You will escape the package hell which may drive you mad. If you know LaTeX you will want to use both. Some specific solutions in LaTeX may be time consuming to implement in ConTeXt (e.g some bibliography styles). Although I used to use both for quite long time, now have switched to ConTeXt completely. – helcim May 10 '15 at 05:51
  • @helcim, then vote for reopening it. We just need one more vote. :-) – Gaussler May 10 '15 at 07:41
  • @helcim You are underestimating the rock solid decades of LaTeX. An often-used analogy about Apple is when you are an esoteric system, everybody thinks it is the next thing. When it hits the masses you have http://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/ . So I think it is pretty bad advice to forget about LaTeX. And there is definitely no package hell if you learn a bit more LaTeX and stop using a package for every minor issue. – percusse May 10 '15 at 09:28
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    what I enjoy about ConTeXt is David's feedback, nah, just kidding.. ;) – doed May 10 '15 at 10:08
  • BTW, my phone's so-called auto-correct got me wrong earlier. "Pretences" should be "preferences". :-) – Gaussler May 10 '15 at 10:09
  • I'm not convinced that the externals are well documented either. For instance, there seems to exist a cool module called calcmath. I can't find docs for it anywhere. – Mark May 10 '15 at 12:02
  • @percusse No, I don't. I agree LaTeX can still be successfully used for many tasks. If you know how to do something in LaTeX keep on using it. If you don't know how to do something in LaTeX try to look for solutions in LaTeX and ConTeXt. That's all. After all it's all TeX ;) – helcim May 11 '15 at 07:23
  • BTW, you can use expl3 in ConTeXt as well by doing \input expl3-generic.tex. It could be that some things behave strangely, because ConTeXt renames or moves some of the TeX primitives, but in some short random tests I did not notice anything odd. – Henri Menke Jun 20 '16 at 11:36

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