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From: U'll Be King of the Stars <ullbeking@andrewnesbit.org>
To: arnold@skeeve.com, Warren Toomey <wkt@tuhs.org>,
	The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs@tuhs.org>,
	Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] earliest Unix roff
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 08:32:25 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <27f52737-3e3b-1198-7ed4-6b97a5f19938@andrewnesbit.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <201909150654.x8F6sChG021185@freefriends.org>

On 15/09/2019 07:54, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> "U'll Be King of the Stars" <ullbeking@andrewnesbit.org> wrote:
>> I've been wondering whether it is possible and worthwhile to use *roff
>> for complex technical documentation.  I've always loved the aesthetic
>> that books produced using *roff have but there are other reasons too.
>>
>> As far as _markup_ is concerned we have DocBook for example.  I am also
>> looking into this.  (Also, I understand it's not a typesetting system.)
> 
> Unless you use a WYSIWYG tool that generates DocBook, you should avoid it.
> Your fingers will kill you.

Oh, I'm not looking for WYSIWIG or even really WYSIMIM.  I'm well used 
to writing in structural markup and presentation markup languages, e.g., 
LaTeX (which I think is extremely complicated, and since I left the 
university environment I do not miss it).

AS for authoring DocBook I was depending on GNU Emacs to do a lot of the 
heavy XML stuff for me.  Wishful thinking perhaps.

> I have written books in troff, DocBook
> and Texinfo.  Texinfo is *by far* the superior markup language.

I've had a feeling that Texinfo has been getting brushed to the side.

Are you suggesting that Info is a good as a rendered documentation 
format?  Or just that Texinfo is good for proto-documents that are to be 
authored in a parseable and meaningful format?

I've been a long-time GNU Emacs user so reading Info files is OK for me. 
  But we've never had a _nice_ Info reader, which is why it didn't take 
off I think.  A lot of people REALLY hate the Info UI.

Moreover it was (is?) very difficult to generate good contents and index 
pages with the official tools that I used at the time.  I started 
working on improving this about 20 years ago but back then it felt as 
though the GNU Info and GNU Emacs projects had other things on their minds.

> Using Texinfo can generate DocBook which your publisher can turn into PDF.
> (I have done this, three times at least.)  But working directly in
> DocBook just plain hurts.

OK, so you are suggesting Texinfo as a prototypical markup language, not 
necessarily something that will end up as Info files?

I have read the Texinfo documentation and I agree that it seemed like a 
rich markup language.

>> Getting back to *roff, does anybody know if there is a (hopefully rich)
>> repository of macros, or any other resources, for my use case?  (La)TeX
>> has this but I'd like to try something else.  What do people think?
> 
> The MM macros are the most capable of the standard sets that are
> out there, although possibly the MOM macros distributed with groff
> are even more so; I have not investigated fully.

Thank you for the heads up.  I never heard of MOM but MM is more familiar.

*I haven't really looked at eqn beyond browsing docs and I'm not sure 
how much I should expect from it.*

TeX is (still?) the king of mathematical expression typesetting.

> My own wish for the next genie in a lamp that I come across would be
> for a texinfo --> troff translator.

Have you looked at Pandoc?  I don't know if it will do this but it's 
worth checking out.

Andrew
-- 
OpenPGP key: EB28 0338 28B7 19DA DAB0  B193 D21D 996E 883B E5B9

  parent reply	other threads:[~2019-09-15  7:32 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 148+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2019-09-13  3:20 [TUHS] My EuroBSDcon talk (preview for commentary) Warner Losh
2019-09-13  9:03 ` Branden Robinson
2019-09-13 19:47 ` Clem Cole
2019-09-13 20:02   ` Clem Cole
2019-09-13 20:06     ` Clem Cole
2019-09-13 20:24       ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-13 20:43         ` Clem Cole
2019-09-13 20:53           ` Diomidis Spinellis
2019-09-13 21:45             ` Clem Cole
2019-09-13 22:13               ` [TUHS] earliest Unix roff Warren Toomey
2019-09-13 22:55                 ` Clem Cole
2019-09-14  2:02                   ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-14  2:44                     ` Warren Toomey
2019-09-15  2:56                       ` U'll Be King of the Stars
2019-09-15  6:54                         ` arnold
2019-09-15  7:01                           ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-15 16:17                             ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-15 17:23                               ` Ronald Natalie
2019-09-15 19:48                             ` Clem Cole
2019-09-15 21:16                               ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-15  7:32                           ` U'll Be King of the Stars [this message]
2019-09-15  7:46                             ` arnold
2019-09-15 19:37                           ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16  5:52                             ` arnold
2019-09-16 12:10                               ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 12:26                                 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2019-09-16 13:42                                   ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 14:54                                     ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 16:09                                     ` Paul Winalski
2019-09-16 22:05                                     ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-16 22:33                                       ` reed
2019-09-17  0:11                                         ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-17  0:02                                       ` Nemo Nusquam
2019-09-17  0:21                                         ` Arthur Krewat
2019-09-17 11:12                                         ` Thomas Paulsen
2019-09-17  0:46                                       ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 13:13                                 ` Chet Ramey
2019-09-16 14:51                                 ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 14:57                                   ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 15:14                                     ` Richard Salz
2019-09-16 15:48                                       ` Ronald Natalie
2019-09-16 16:10                                       ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 16:16                                         ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 16:26                                           ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 16:31                                             ` Richard Salz
2019-09-16 16:45                                               ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 17:19                                                 ` KatolaZ
2019-09-16 17:24                                                   ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 17:32                                                     ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 17:35                                                     ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 17:37                                                   ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 18:09                                                     ` [TUHS] [OT] " KatolaZ
2019-09-16 18:19                                                       ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 18:04                                                   ` [TUHS] " Chet Ramey
2019-09-16 18:19                                                     ` KatolaZ
2019-09-16 23:24                                                     ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-16 17:24                                                 ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 17:00                                               ` Clem Cole
2019-09-17 11:20                                         ` Thomas Paulsen
2019-09-16 19:13                                       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2019-09-16 19:31                                       ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-16 22:35                                     ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-17  7:53                                   ` arnold
2019-09-17 14:21                                     ` Clem Cole
2019-09-17 15:03                                       ` arnold
2019-09-17 15:58                                     ` Christopher Browne
2019-09-17 18:15                                       ` arnold
2019-09-17 18:32                                         ` Warner Losh
2019-09-18  0:42                                         ` Adam Thornton
2019-09-16 21:42                                 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-16 21:48                                   ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-16 21:54                                     ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 21:59                                       ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-17  5:07                                         ` Lars Brinkhoff
2019-09-16 22:10                                       ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-17  0:16                                   ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2019-09-17  0:31                                     ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-17 12:20                                     ` David
2019-10-05 19:44                                 ` Michael Parson
2019-09-15 19:35                         ` Clem Cole
2019-09-15 20:49                           ` U'll Be King of the Stars
2019-09-16  6:20                             ` arnold
2019-09-16 12:13                               ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 12:34                                 ` arnold
2019-09-16 14:52                                 ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-17  0:10                               ` [TUHS] O'Reilly groff macros (was: earliest Unix roff) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2019-09-17  0:51                                 ` Clem Cole
2019-09-17  0:54                                   ` [TUHS] O'Reilly groff macros U'll Be King of the Stars
2019-09-17  1:03                                     ` Clem Cole
2019-09-17  1:41                                     ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2019-09-17  1:58                                       ` Clem cole
2019-09-15 19:27                       ` [TUHS] earliest Unix roff Clem Cole
2019-09-15 19:31                         ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-14  7:35               ` [TUHS] My EuroBSDcon talk (preview for commentary) Diomidis Spinellis
2019-09-13 21:31       ` Clem Cole
2019-09-17 19:29         ` Warner Losh
2019-09-17 20:17           ` Clem Cole
2019-09-17 19:18       ` Warner Losh
2019-09-17 20:13         ` Clem Cole
2019-09-13 20:06     ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-14  6:13   ` Wesley Parish
2019-09-15 21:46 ` Clem Cole
2019-09-15 23:25   ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-15 23:35     ` Clem cole
2019-09-16  1:42     ` Warner Losh
2019-09-16  1:52       ` Clem cole
2019-09-16  2:05         ` George Michaelson
2019-09-16  2:37           ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-16  3:29             ` [TUHS] INed/Rand Editor/Ned [was " Charles H. Sauer
2019-09-16 14:53               ` Clem Cole
2019-09-16 16:16                 ` Warner Losh
2019-09-16 20:21                   ` G. Branden Robinson
2019-09-16 20:47                     ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-16 22:33                       ` George Michaelson
2019-09-16 23:14                         ` G. Branden Robinson
2019-10-09  1:10                         ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2019-09-16 22:48                       ` [TUHS] better ways and termcap vs. terminfo " G. Branden Robinson
2019-09-17 11:46                     ` [TUHS] INed/Rand Editor/Ned [was Re: My EuroBSDcon talk (preview " Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-09-17 12:52                       ` G. Branden Robinson
2019-10-09  0:38                   ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2019-09-16  1:31   ` [TUHS] " William Pechter
2019-09-16  1:48     ` Clem cole
2019-09-16  2:24     ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-16  2:31       ` Toby Thain
2019-09-16  3:36   ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2019-09-15  2:45 [TUHS] earliest Unix roff Doug McIlroy
2019-09-15 22:07 Doug McIlroy
2019-09-17  0:20 ` Steve Johnson
2019-09-17  1:11   ` Arthur Krewat
2019-09-17  1:17     ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-17  1:26       ` Clem cole
2019-09-17  1:33         ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-17 22:39           ` Dave Horsfall
2019-09-17  1:36         ` Richard Salz
2019-09-17  1:57       ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-17  1:19   ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-19 18:10 Norman Wilson
2019-09-19 18:37 ` Clem Cole
2019-09-19 18:44   ` Jon Steinhart
2019-09-19 19:44 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2019-09-19 20:38   ` John P. Linderman
2019-09-20 13:41     ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2019-09-20 15:03       ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2019-09-19 20:53 ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-19 18:42 Norman Wilson
2019-09-19 22:42 ` Rob Pike
2019-09-19 22:55   ` Bakul Shah
2019-09-19 18:50 [TUHS] [OT] " Norman Wilson
2019-09-19 19:00 ` Nemo Nusquam
2019-09-19 20:18   ` Larry McVoy
2019-09-19 20:42     ` [TUHS] " Andy Kosela

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