@KZ-Spectra Sounds like a reasonable question for the site.

@Dr.ManuelKuehner Impressive work, and well chosen title!

Travel to Bonn: 7:15 driving time, or 10:30 by train. I could also fly probably...

@yo' you should not travel by train these days in germany ...

@JasperHabicht "these days" includes next July?

@yo' sure!

@JasperHabicht oh, what's happening? My experience with German trains has always been awesome!

@yo' well, a huge investment backlog has been built up over the last decades. very little money has been invested in everything, so quite a lot of things need to be re-built or repaired which will take a lot of time. Deutsche Bahn said that they and travellers need to pass a "valley of tears" ... whatever this means ... =D

@JasperHabicht Strikes?

@JosephWright not quite. it is just a lot of construction going on at various places, so you really need a lot of patience currently when travelling by train. and nobody (including Deutsche Bahn) really knows how long everything might take

currently they replace switches in cologne. the result is that there are virtually no direct connections between cologne and berlin ... which is really something given that there are normally two direct connections each hour

@JasperHabicht While this is true, the day-to-day operations are more or less working as they should in the majority of Germany. I'm using DB trains nearly daily and while the usual problems (mainly delays, but also things like no heating in winter, no air condition in summer, …) persist, the major construction sites are pretty localized. Of course, that's very annoying if you are affected by one of those (because they take ages), I have made that experience as well.

Still, I'd not discourage people from travelling with DB in general. And on some days, it's pretty much enjoyable compared to German highways ;)

@yo' it isn't so bad. You can have problems with some connections, and you can have unexpected delays, but you can also have lots of problems and delays on airports. If you plan with some buffer time and have fall back connections trains works ok. Also Bonn is reachable from many sides: You can go to Cologne, Bonn, Bonn-Beuel, Siegburg and from there there are trams.

@TeXnician that's certainly true. it just seems to me that there are a lot of construction sites in north rhine-westphalia

and yes: other means of transportation have their own problems ... =D

@UlrikeFischer the connection I could take and looks the best is Prague Hbf -- Dresden Hbf -- Mainz Hbf -- Bonn probably, the only bad thing is a 5-minute change in Mainz. But anyway, in half a year, the trains might be completely different...

@JasperHabicht Well, it's one of the federal states with the highest traffic volume in trains, so there is certainly a need to do something. Compared to areas where you are lucky to have a train every three or four hours, I'd still consider most construction site schedules pretty comfortable. And we just expect DB to perform as well as Japanese railway ;)

@yo' I would extend the time for changing a bit. but since you are not going via cologne, you might be fine

@yo' 5 minutes are a bit short, but Mainz is near, and there is always another train.

@TeXnician I don't say that they should not do anything. but somehow I think, had they invested more the last years, there would not be the need to do that much today.

@UlrikeFischer yeah, that's exactly what I thought. The change in Dresden is 1:20something and it's a morning train so that one would probably be OK. Anyway, it's not clear that I'll be able to join as it collides with my summer camp :-(

@yo' You can actually get a very comfortable connection from Dresden Hbf using an IC (intercity, not intercity express) train which will be a direct connection to Bonn, no changes and not even that much longer travelling time ;)

@TeXnician well, I wasn't offered that at all by neither the Czech nor the Austrian system I'm used to use, so it's probably not a good timing w.r.t. the trains from Prague...

@yo' Yes, those IC trains depend a bit on when you arrive. For instance, on that Friday (14.07.), the first connection from Prague where DB offers it is 08:25(Prague)–19:12(Bonn), so probably they do not match that well.

@TeXnician I'd most likely not travel on Friday but already on Thursday...

@yo' 5 minutes in Mainz is adventurous. This train station is a bit of a bottle neck meaning that many trains have to wait until they are permitted to enter it, thus many delays. (but getting stranded there isn't bad, they have a great museum about Gutenberg)

@yo' Then this is one of the connections offered by DB on Thursday. Works every two hours.

@TeXnician and there's a similar one via Regensburg, also taking 10 hours, and also running every 2 hours. Seems I can do train, unless I decide to drive for some reason

btw, is it legal to sleep in a car at highway parking stops in Germany?

@yo' yes. If you have a proper parking place, you can sleep.

@UlrikeFischer cool -- that's good to know! It might come handy if I do it as a roadtrip with some stops for natureseeing.

@UlrikeFischer Is the venue already known? (just to know what general area to look for hotels)

@samcarter_xmas_is_coming yes. leoninum-bonn.de. There will be also an offer for rooms directly in the hotel, but there are also a large number of other hotels nearby.

@UlrikeFischer Thanks! Looks nice :)

@AlexG Thanks Alex, especially for your animate package and great support.

@DavidCarlisle, @UlrikeFischer babel actives strike again: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/667657/…

@JosephWright active " made sense, active - less so :(

@DavidCarlisle Quite

@DavidCarlisle Even " has issues as it's part of core TeX syntax

> It is worth emphasizing these macros are meant for temporary changes.Whenever possible and if there are not conflicts with other packages, shorthands must be always enabled (or disabled).

@JosephWright real people don't count in hex

@DavidCarlisle :)

@JosephWright I think that shorthand should be off by default. If someone really wants it, they can activate it manually.

@UlrikeFischer That’s the direction of travel I think

Sounds like a good idea, indeed.

@JosephWright but not easy to take. I see no easy way to deactivate that, babel quite insist to reactivate it later.

@UlrikeFischer I mean that he has been trying to reduce shorthand activation, but you have to deal with real user documents that expect it

Slow train ride: a chance to set up some l3build tests ;)

@DavidCarlisle I think you love hex. tex.stackexchange.com/a/667671/52406 :P

I'm experiencing one of my customary bouts of confusion when returning to TeX after some time. This one is related to the use of @ in macro names.

For example, consider:

\documentclass[12pt]{scrartcl}
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\foo@bar}{foobar}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\newcommand{\foo}{foo}
\foo
\end{document}

Is this usage OK?

But if I replace \newcommand with \def I get an error.

The error is:

    ! Missing control sequence inserted.
<inserted text>
                \inaccessible
l.3 \def{
         \foo@bar}{foobar}

Oh, sorry. I see that one was a basic usage mistake. Please ignore.