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added Brooks' explanation of differences to LaTeX
=== Why does <code>\startalignment[right]</code> or <code>\framed[align=right]{some text}</code> align my text left instead of right and vice versa? ===
:This is for backward compatibility with older versions; see [[Right and left]]. Hans was originally thinking of "ragged right" and "ragged left" alignment. Use '''flushleft''' and '''flushright''' instead.
=== What are the differences between ConTeXt and LaTeX? ===
:The main difference between the two, in my opinion, is a philosophical one: LaTeX was created with the idea of separating content and presentation to such an extent that the typical author would write their content and then use a style file created by someone else to provide the visual presentation. Thus, the proliferation of style files and related things.
:ConTeXt, on the other hand, retained the idea of separating content and presentation, but was created with the idea of being used for books, where each book tends to have a different layout, and so the expected "end user" is the person doing all the layout. Thus, it's designed to provide a vast amount of flexibility for layout in a way that can be fairly easily defined without needing to write a package (or go find one that's already written).
:To some extent, modern LaTeX has become a lot more like ConTeXt's intent, with a large quantity of packages, and classes like "memoir" that are designed to give the end user a large amount of control of the visual presentation. Thus, the difference is more one of focus and arrangement -- ConTeXt is all "of a piece" and most things are built in and designed as a complete set, whereas with LaTeX it's generally the case that when you want to do something different, you need to find the right package, and sometimes find that there are three that almost do what you want and none that are quite right (but, then, that also means that there are usually choices for how to do things, which can be good.)
:Another difference is that IMO, ConTeXt is a lot easier to program in. It was designed a fair bit later than LaTeX, for much faster computers, and thus includes a lot of things that make it load and run slower but make programming a lot easier.
:Author: Brooks Moses on c.t.t. usenet
=== What are the advantages of ConTeXt over LaTeX? ===
