Re: [9fans] htmlroff

[Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com>]

> If I remember right - and I might not - I looked into an
> html driver or terminal type for troff, but gave up and
> did man2html instead, which took a radically smpler
> tack than ms2html and scored a little better overall
> but much worse in some cases.

I agree that modifying troff to add a driver wouldn't work,
because troff still thinks it is in charge of various layout
decisions and works at too low a level.  Troff2html fails
(when it does) for basically the same reasons.  Ms2html,
while originally intended to handle the -ms macros directly,
now has machinery in it to run arbitrary troff macros.  I think
that if this were fleshed out and a few primtives for HTML
added, then the HTML and -ms details could be moved
completely out into macro libraries.

> Don't you think a better long-term plan would be
> to abandon troff?

Yes.  But for what?

Russ