From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [IPv6:2600:3c01:e000:146::1]) by inbox.vuxu.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 131CD26B91 for ; Fri, 7 Jun 2024 09:32:49 +0200 (CEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31E8A4316A; Fri, 7 Jun 2024 17:32:43 +1000 (AEST) Received: from freefriends.org (frenzy.freefriends.org [198.99.81.75]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D0DD04315E for ; Fri, 7 Jun 2024 17:32:35 +1000 (AEST) X-Envelope-From: arnold@skeeve.com Received: from freefriends.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefriends.org (8.16.1/8.16.1) with ESMTPS id 4577WOwe691964 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NOT); Fri, 7 Jun 2024 01:32:25 -0600 Received: (from arnold@localhost) by freefriends.org (8.16.1/8.14.7/Submit) id 4577WO39691963; Fri, 7 Jun 2024 01:32:24 -0600 From: arnold@skeeve.com Message-Id: <202406070732.4577WO39691963@freefriends.org> X-Authentication-Warning: frenzy.freefriends.org: arnold set sender to arnold@skeeve.com using -f Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2024 01:32:24 -0600 To: marc.donner@gmail.com, imp@bsdimp.com References: In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.5 7/5/10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID-Hash: 4MZKGD4LJSX53NBAEIHCG57KML6OCETV X-Message-ID-Hash: 4MZKGD4LJSX53NBAEIHCG57KML6OCETV X-MailFrom: arnold@skeeve.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: tuhs@tuhs.org, douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Proliferation of book print styles List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Warner Losh wrote: > At the risk of venturing too far off into the weeds (though maybe it's too > late for that) > > What do people think of the newer markup languages like Markdown or ASCII > Doctor? They seem more approachable than SGML or docbook, and a bit easier > to understand, though with less control, than troff, LaTeX or TeX. Having written books in troff, DocBook (SGML and XML), Texinfo and AsciiDoc, I can say that the latter two are much more pleasant that the former two. AsciiDoc is quite nice once you get to used to it, but sometimes getting it to layout things exactly the way you want can be difficult. Also, there aren't good free software toolchains for it to produce really nice output. The production process for the AsciiDoc book went AsciiDoc --> HTML --> Proprietary Formatter (Antenna House) --> PDF. I have not written much MarkDown, but I agree that it's too sparse for serious (book length) work. My two cents, Arnold