From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 15:36:18 +0200 From: tlaronde@polynum.com To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Message-ID: <20140813133618.GA434@polynum.com> References: <20140813104336.GA1172@polynum.com> <27b6e2da6fd28b4d22d9837e3ef11a2b@9.SQUiSH.org> <2021410182.1376266.1407932520506.JavaMail.ngmail@webmail06.arcor-online.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <2021410182.1376266.1407932520506.JavaMail.ngmail@webmail06.arcor-online.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Subject: Re: [9fans] Many bugs in eqn(1) Topicbox-Message-UUID: 0f7d75b2-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 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 http://www.kergis.com/ http://www.renaissance-francaise.fr/ Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C