Re: [Groff] Why is it...

[Andre Majorel]

On 2007-12-14 12:25 -0500, Michael Kerpan wrote:

> ...that groff/troff seems to be written off by so many as "obsolete"
> and "only useful for man pages", despite the fact that it can do
> everything that TeX/LaTeX (seemingly the favored non-WYSIWYG document
> processor) can do but while taking up 3 megabytes (as opposed to the
> 300 or so used by the average TeX install) It can't be ease of use, as
> *roff plus -me, -mm or -ms is no harder to use than LaTeX or HTML. It
> can't be availability as the *roff family is basically a required
> component of any Unix-like system. It can't even be font support,
> given that it's MUCH easier to install and use random PostScript fonts
> in groff than in TeX... What gives and how can we fix it?

Troff definitely feels clunkier than TeX. The sendmail-ish syntax,
the two-letter names and each command having different default
units than you can never remember are part of it. Troff may be
able to do the same things as (La)Tex but in my limited
experience, it takes much more work on your part.

I don't share your perception that TeX stole Troff's crown. I feel
than TeX truly is an improvement over Troff.

I don't think there's anything you could or should do, either.
Troff is showing its age, that's all.

-- 
André Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
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