Re: [9fans] Programming tutorial draft

[john@csplan9.rit.edu]

> On Nov 7, 2008, at 11:09 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 3:03 AM, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> I'd like to see a you tube video of the troff.
>>
>> Dude, don't tempt me.  When (if?) I (ever?) get off of active duty, I
>> might do a youtube video on troff.  I know that's not quite what you
>> were saying, but it'd be hilarious.
>>
>>        - Dan C.
>>
>> (ps- Bruce, let me know when you'll be stateside again.)
>>
>
> If I made it, it wouldn't be on youtube (I don't want to give up my
> rights to the video). But I would definitely give it to you, the groff
> guys, and the Heirloom guys.
>
> How is this to start:
>
> 	"This video will teach you troff. What is troff? troff is a document
> preparation system, much like TeX or Microsoft Word. troff is one of
> the first of these systems to support fonts in italic and drawing on
> the page. It was developed by the late Joe Ossanna and is the latest
> and newest in a long line of document programs.
> 	troff is most like TeX in that the document is a text file containing
> words with formatting commands mixed in. This means you'll have to get
> used to the command line.
> 	Three primary versions of troff are used today. The official version,
> based of Ossanna's work, is in the Plan 9 from Bell Labs operating
> system. The most common one is groff, a version made for the GNU
> project. There is also Heirloom troff, based off the ones by
> OpenSolaris. All three are free software.
> 	So as you can see, troff is a Unix tool. But if you are on Windows,
> don't despair: there are ports of these tools to Windows. I will be
> running Plan 9 for my demo.
>
> 	Let's start by creating a simple document. Create a new text file:
>
> 		> first_troff
>
> and edit it:
>
> 		acme first_troff
>
> Now let's type a few words:
>
> 		hello, world
>
> Save your work. In my case, I middle-click the Put at the top.
> 	Now comes the fun part. In Plan 9, to preview the document, you say
>
> 		troff first_troff | proof
>
> or
>
> 		troff first_troff | page
>
> I will use page. With GNU, you convert to a PostScript file and open
> it with an image viewer:
>
> 		troff first_troff | grops > first_troff.ps
>
> (Heirloom goes here.)"


A video seems like a rather foolish place to try and explain troff,
since the whole process is a lot of text input and a couple commands.
There exist plenty of documents on writing troff AND they avoid the
cutesy "Ok now let's do this...  here's what I did...  Now the fun
part" form.


John