Re: [9fans] troff and 4.4BSD man pages

[Jon Snader <jsnader@ix.netcom.com>]

On Mon, Jun 07, 2004 at 08:55:11AM +0000, Douglas A. Gwyn wrote:
> boyd, rounin wrote:
> >i think we [Christophe ?] and i found that the registers could
> >be now named with multi char names, yesterday.  iirc:
> >    .nr foo 1 1
> >    ...
> >    \([foo]
> >now, that is not troff.
> 
> What is especially unfortunate is that SoftQuad did a
> better job of designing such extensions to troff, but
> whoever did the above came up with an incompatible
> scheme.

What's unfortunate is that we are spending more and more of our
time on this list bashing Unix/Linux/Gnu, instead of addressing
the advantages and problems with Plan 9.  It's always fun to stick
a finger in the eye of a competitor, of course, but providing a
vehicle for this pleasure is not my understanding of what Plan 9
is all about.

What's unfortunate is that our bashing is often misinformed, both
in spirit and in detail.  The above comments are a case in point.
Is there anyone here who really maintains that the two character
name space in [nt]roff is not a disadvantage?  Why should we
complain that groff has removed this disadvantage?  Why should we
not remove it from [nt]roff?  The answer given above is that the
extension is incompatible, but that is incorrect.  The groff
rules for using registers are the same as for [nt]roff except
that register names greater than 3 characters use brackets
*instead* of the opening parenthesis:

    \n[foo]  (NOT \([foo])
    \*[bar]
    etc.

Since I have personally typeset many of the Version 7 papers with
groff, I can attest to its compatibility with [nt]roff.

What's unfortunate is that many of us here act as if no one else has
anything to teach us.  Plan 9 is great software and a shining
example of excellence in design, but just maybe it isn't the
final answer on all questions.

jcs