Re: [9fans] Many bugs in eqn(1)

[tlaronde@polynum.com]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 02:22:00PM +0200, Carsten Kunze wrote:
>
>
> Is this really necessary for the system documentation?  AFAIK P9 nroff/troff
> can handle utf-8.  If there are problems with *roff they should be solved.
> *roff is a Bell Labs documentation system--it should be used for P9--IMO.

IMO, the advantages are multiple:

1) TeX is a complete system: not only the layout engine, but the means
to draw the fonts. METAFONT is also a rasterizer engine. This means that
the system can be self-sufficient allowing to render the result without
resorting to huge external PS dependencies;

2) TeX programs (for the D.E.K. parts) are fully documented and fully
debugged. Before, I thought that using Pascal as the programming
language was a problem (I never managed to like Pascal). But having
work for kerTeX with the WEB programs, I understand now that this
is not really Pascal, but some Algol. The translation from _this_
Pascal to C is under control, so the programming language is not a
problem after all and probably prevents lots of people from tempering
with it: TeX is stable;

3) The "typesetting" system is not my aim. My aim is to use it as a mean
for producing documentation about something else. Having several
languages to learn for, in fact, doing the same thing while it has
been recognized that for math, TeX is an improvement, is suboptimal;

4) TeX and al. and the original Web-to-C were not bundled under GPL.
Now, with kerTeX, the bundle is not anymore with GPL (and for systems,
whether Plan9 or the *BSD, since what I did use was under public
licence, and what is added is mine, I could re-licence my contributions
to the very licence of the systems). Other troff implementations
are whether under GPL, or the improvements were made taking from
TeX (Heirloom);

5) With kerTeX, we are back with the needle only and not the whole
hay stack and the whole core thing is really, really small. Including
fonts.

--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
              http://www.renaissance-francaise.fr/
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