Editorial

Transcribed from the printed issue; not yet reviewed.

This is probably the first Editorial ever that was not written by the Editor; my friend Stephen Taylor has stepped down as Vector’s Editor with immediate effect. He tried to get away from the job at the last AGM in 2011 but we didn’t let him. Bad move. He had to force us.

When Stephen asked for help back in 2010 because he could not stem the work-load any more a number of people including me offered help. Some learned how to mark up an article written by a contributor. I learned from him how to collect the articles already published on the Web and convert them into a PDF that can go to the print shop. I think it’s fair to say that all of us were surprised by the amount of work it takes simply to set an article for the web, in particular when it is lengthy or contains plenty of code in the text or plenty of images or math formulae, let alone an article that combines all these obstacles.

I remember vividly the lengthy email I got from him after I’d produced the first print issue of Vector back in 2010. Although I had spent countless hours on this issue I’d missed many details and I’d made plenty of mistakes. We then met on a weekend and went through this email, fixing one problem after the other; it took us a whole Sunday. I had no idea how much work it takes in the background to get this done.

And that’s just the technical bit. Of course the editor also has to negotiate with the authors, and some of them have very strong opinions on how their stuff should look. Others must be encouraged to come forward. Articles written by authors whose first language is not English add to the workload. Occasionally an article was practically rewritten by Stephen.

Finally there’s the website which was completely redesigned by Stephen; a big project in its own rights.

We will miss Stephen’s passion, his skills and his eye for details. He has done an amazing job for many years. At the moment I cannot imagine how we shall manage without him but somehow we have to.

Kai Jaeger