From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.1 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, DKIM_VALID_AU,HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 8f18086a for ; Sun, 15 Sep 2019 07:32:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 82F6D9496A; Sun, 15 Sep 2019 17:32:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76DDC9478E; Sun, 15 Sep 2019 17:32:33 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key; unprotected) header.d=andrewnesbit.org header.i=@andrewnesbit.org header.b="G3JCd4WN"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 974C19496A; Sun, 15 Sep 2019 17:32:31 +1000 (AEST) Received: from smtp-out-3.mxes.net (smtp-out-3.mxes.net [198.205.123.68]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D09A393D23 for ; Sun, 15 Sep 2019 17:32:30 +1000 (AEST) Received: from Customer-MUA (mua.mxes.net [10.0.0.1]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.mxes.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 8A491273BE; Sun, 15 Sep 2019 03:32:27 -0400 (EDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=andrewnesbit.org; s=default; t=1568532749; bh=6Fs4ege9hA19k0sPkAm0/v8fQjf55nGMMZoAkFZnAIM=; h=Subject:To:References:From:Date:In-Reply-To:From; b=G3JCd4WN49YAlo+CPreBbKH8AnRREVmf7Hc29Tw79/aCIyg3Kzu7CQKDxutW0w4fA Yt/z0yQ0xnXLgt1f7p44R5G/YoMy0OuGyh0Vi6Low1ZuVb9Vfc4XeKygQwQRcsZhmK nUWkekcS1kSPzj1a+2PNtdwfKIujmFKdGM5G2tlI= To: arnold@skeeve.com, Warren Toomey , The Eunuchs Hysterical Society , Larry McVoy References: <201909132024.x8DKObEP013266@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <463d5cc4-9bef-9ac3-a680-a5161d664dc1@aueb.gr> <20190913221345.GA16129@minnie.tuhs.org> <20190914020240.GO2046@mcvoy.com> <20190914024433.GA19193@minnie.tuhs.org> <2e84c4d0-5239-b223-856d-00aacf8d3028@andrewnesbit.org> <201909150654.x8F6sChG021185@freefriends.org> From: U'll Be King of the Stars Message-ID: <27f52737-3e3b-1198-7ed4-6b97a5f19938@andrewnesbit.org> Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 08:32:25 +0100 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.9.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <201909150654.x8F6sChG021185@freefriends.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Language: en-GB Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Sent-To: Subject: Re: [TUHS] earliest Unix roff X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On 15/09/2019 07:54, arnold@skeeve.com wrote: > "U'll Be King of the Stars" 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