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

[Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com>]

On 13 August 2014 12:57, Carsten Kunze <carsten.kunze@arcor.de> wrote:

> Since nobody seems to use troff on P9 I regarded it as off-topic.

The traffic is low enough to discuss any matter related to p9(p) here,
I believe. And it can be used as a back-reference in the future.


>> http://9fans.net/archive/?q=sykora+eqn&go=Grep
>
> I can't believe that TeX should not produce better results, but
> thats really OT...

I don't understand what you mean.


>> I'd rather say that p9p software is the source these days.
>
> Really?  Ok, if I compare the sources it looks like this.  Is this
> true for troff only or for p9p in general?
>
> So p9 troff posts may be better done on the p9p list?

I think whoever uses p9p reads this list.
I personally even don't know there is a special p9p list.


>> troff is a macro language.
>
> This I completely don't understand.  If someone has much time
> and uses only low level requests than the word "macro" should
> be improper?
>
> What is not a macro language, i.e. what do you suggest to use instead?
>
>> Page makeup by postprocessing text formatter output
>> by Kernighan & Wyk
>
> I also do not understand that.  It is possible to write very good macro
> packages for troff.  Also TeX can produce very good documents.  Ok,
> this is OT again.

Just read the document.
And it is not only about producing good documents meaning
good-looking. It's about scalability and readability, too.
Nobody would tell you LaTeX is readable. PlainTeX is, but
by itself, it doesn't know much (like plain troff).
Twisting a macro language around is often difficult, has many
pitfalls, may be difficult to debug, and if it grows beyond a certain
level, it collapses. That's at least what I think.

Ruda