Re: [9fans] troff book

[John Stalker <stalker@maths.tcd.ie>]

As a thesis advisor myself, though not of this thesis, I would say that
the advice below might or might not be correct, depending on field of
study.  I have some affection for troff, but TeX and its progeny really
do produce much nicer looking equations.  In a field where equations
are usually simple and there are only one or two per page there is no
reason not to use eqn|troff.  In something like Mathematics or Theoretical
Physics, where equations can be quite complex and are everywhere, you
really want to use some TeX variant.  Using eqn|troff would be like using
MS Comic Sans for the text.  Yes, the content is the same, but the form
would make you look eccentric or incompetent.  It's true the few people
read theses, but that's no reason to piss them off unnecessarily, since
they decide whether you get a degree or not.

> Having read the replies, I thought I'd offer slightly different advice.
> You are writing a dissertation. The formatting just needs to be what
> satisfies your university's format requirements, which usually are
> broad. I'd be surprised if they required an index for instance. Don't
> waste time and effort on the formatting. For one thing, few people
> will actually read your dissertation, unless what you're doing is
> stupendous (and then they won't care about the format): your proof-reader
> (you have got one, haven't you?), your supervisor, your examiners,
> and ... that's usually about it. (Your parents will look at it.) If your
> supervisor
> supervisor can start fussing about the prettiness of (say) your equations
> and tables rather than their content, you can reasonably suggest to him
> that you
> would appear to be finished. Just do a few test runs first of typical
> equations
> just to check that the output is at least reasonable.
>
> Much later, when your topic turns out to be important again, someone like
> me will remember seeing your dissertation mentioned, or find it through
> Google^,
> but I can assure you that by we'll still be more interested in the content.
>
> I'd use the system with which you're most familiar. You don't want the
> added distractions of trying to debug the typesetting software, and when
> something goes wrong, it's much easier if you've used it before. (In my own
> case, the night of the submission deadline, when I came to do
> the final copy, I discovered that the troff installation Had Somehow Changed
> and the output was completely messed up. Unfortunately that predated Plan 9
> and yesterday(1),
> but fortunately it's easy to check each stage of the pipeline, and
> I could work out where to look for the change to undo.
>
> If you're using troff, pick up a copy of refer from contrib.
--
John Stalker
School of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin
tel +353 1 896 1983
fax +353 1 896 2282