Re: [9fans] Programming tutorial draft

[Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com>]

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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.)"


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