[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2861 bytes --] On Friday, 31 December 2021 at 15:40:39 -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > On Sat, Jan 01, 2022 at 09:07:49AM +1000, George Michaelson wrote: >> But macros aside, anyone who had used runoff had a >> massively simpler path into roff than TeX. My future was set. The phd >> students at Leeds looked down their noses at me for using cryptic .2 letter >> inline magic. They were the high priests of things, I was just a computer >> operator. Watching them spend weeks and weeks wrangling a one em offset >> problem stopping perfection in print was.. entertaining. > > I was program committee chair for Linux Expo in 1999 (all that means is > I formatted the proceedings into a book). I let people use LaTex but > encouraged troff. A few people tried out troff and their reaction was > "Wow, that was so easy and groff is really fast!" Heh. I had a similar experience when writing "Porting Unix Software" (1995). O'Reilly insisted on using groff with their macro set, and I had only had experience with (La)TeX. I fought for quite some time, but ultimately gave in. Despite Baby Duck Syndrome, I discovered that I far preferred groff to TeX, and I've been using it ever since. From PUS: .Pe More than anywhere else in porting, it is good for your state of mind to steer clear of .TXI \& internals. The assumptions on which the syntax is based differ markedly from those of other programming languages. For example, identifiers may not contain digits, and spaces are required only when the meaning would otherwise be ambiguous (to .TXI , not to you), so the sequence \s10\f(CWfontsize300\fR\s0 is in fact the identifier \s10\f(CWfontsize\fR\s0 followed by the number \s10\f(CW300\fR\s0. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to find any good solid information in the documentation, so you could spend hours trying to solve a minor problem. I have been using .TXI \& frequently for years, and I still find it the most frustrating program I have ever seen.\** .FS When I wrote this sentence, I wondered if I wasn't overstating the case. Mike Loukides, the author of \fIProgramming with GNU Software\fR, reviewed the final draft and added a single word: \fIAmen\fR. .FE > The only negative reaction was table of contents complaints, LaTex is > 2 pass so it can do them, roff is one pass so you have to fiddle with > things. A lot. I solved that issue in later documents with two passes in the Makefile targets, frobbing things like references and contents in between. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 163 bytes --]
On Sat, Jan 01, 2022 at 11:56:05AM +1100, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> > The only negative reaction was table of contents complaints, LaTex is
> > 2 pass so it can do them, roff is one pass so you have to fiddle with
> > things. A lot.
>
> I solved that issue in later documents with two passes in the Makefile
> targets, frobbing things like references and contents in between.
I was troff friends with W Richard Stevens, he shared with me a lot of
what he did in troff. He did the two pass thing. Nice guy and got as
much out of roff that anyone could, all of his books were troff.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2962 bytes --] I've used nroff/troff/TeX with many of their various macro packages over about a 35 years span. During that time, I've done many single-page documents as well as documents as long as 350 pages. I also modified a version of nroff to create business forms for Laster printers. This is still being used commercially. This is one person's opinion: 1. Perhaps owing to my limited intelligence, and in spite of the fact that I've used TeX successfully on many documents, I have never been able to fully understand TeX. Apparently, it is too much for me. Troff, on the other hand, has made full sense to me. I was able to make it do what I wanted almost always. I enjoy using troff more because I find it simpler, and therefore, more pleasant to use. 2. Looking at the output, it is my opinion that TeX produces better-looking documents. Perhaps this is just no more than one man's esthetic opinion. I do not know what it is that I find better. It's just the sense I get. On the other hand, I find troff output to be sufficiently good in nearly all cases. 3. troff is a good and reasonable tool. TeX is too big and complex an environment in most cases. Although it is true that all of the complexity of the TeX environment is successfully hidden in virtually all cases. I find the huge and complex environment offputting. Very unfortunately, I see troff disappearing. I've worked with a number of teams over the last ten years. In every case, I was the oldest engineer. Also, in each case, I was the only engineer who had even heard of troff. They understand the problems of binary formats such as Word and OpenOffice. Their solutions are things like markdown, AsciiDoc, et al. They are doing this development and making use of these tools without knowledge of troff. The same is true to a greater or lesser degree with TeX, except that I've seen TeX used at universities. I like that groff and TeX are rock solid and well supported. In fact, I wrote a report generator for a modern web development framework using troff. I use it to develop reports on a routine basis. (kissweb.org) Sadly, however, if word of their existence doesn't get out there, I see them both disappearing in not much longer than a generation. This would be sad indeed. Blake McBride On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 9:16 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > On Sat, Jan 01, 2022 at 11:56:05AM +1100, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > > > The only negative reaction was table of contents complaints, LaTex is > > > 2 pass so it can do them, roff is one pass so you have to fiddle with > > > things. A lot. > > > > I solved that issue in later documents with two passes in the Makefile > > targets, frobbing things like references and contents in between. > > I was troff friends with W Richard Stevens, he shared with me a lot of > what he did in troff. He did the two pass thing. Nice guy and got as > much out of roff that anyone could, all of his books were troff. > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3622 bytes --]
On 1/10/22 11:00 AM, Blake McBride wrote: > I like that groff and TeX are rock solid and well supported. > Sadly, however, if word of their existence doesn't get out there, I see > them both disappearing in not much longer than a generation. This would > be sad indeed. TeX badly need an official rewrite in a modern programming language (e.g. Go, Rust, even C). The rewrite should drop support for the .dvi format, and use .pdf instead. It should also make use of modern hardware capabilities and not have any built-in limits to how much memory gets used. These issues are well recognized by the TeX community but with Knuth not willing to be the BDFL, TeX is floundering. (I don't mean any of this as criticism of TeX. It's a truly miraculous program that was created in a different time.) Jon
On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 01:00:15PM -0600, Blake McBride wrote:
> 2. Looking at the output, it is my opinion that TeX produces
> better-looking documents.
It's a double edged sword. TeX looks better but you instantly know it is
TeX, it has a particular look. Troff looks just fine to me, and you don't
know it is Troff, Word, or what.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 300 bytes --] > It's a double edged sword. TeX looks better but you instantly know it is > TeX, it has a particular look. Troff looks just fine to me, and you don't > know it is Troff, Word, or what. > Oh, does *roff support Comic Sans now? Less flippantly, I know it's TeX is probably mostly about the fonts. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 565 bytes --]
Blake McBride wrote in <CABwHSOuMxgEJnNUczbcGhA_939q_XfwCLyqacaGpz3+AjdSqSQ@mail.gmail.com>: |I've used nroff/troff/TeX with many of their various macro packages over |about a 35 years span. During that time, I've done many single-page |documents as well as documents as long as 350 pages. I also modified a |version of nroff to create business forms for Laster printers. This is |still being used commercially. This is one person's opinion: | |1. Perhaps owing to my limited intelligence, and in spite of the fact that |I've used TeX successfully on many documents, I have never been able to |fully understand TeX. Apparently, it is too much for me. Troff, on the |other hand, has made full sense to me. I was able to make it do what I |wanted almost always. I enjoy using troff more because I find it simpler, |and therefore, more pleasant to use. | |2. Looking at the output, it is my opinion that TeX produces |better-looking documents. Perhaps this is just no more than one man's |esthetic opinion. I do not know what it is that I find better. It's just |the sense I get. On the other hand, I find troff output to be sufficiently |good in nearly all cases. Note that heirloom doctools (on github) is a SysV-derived *roff codebase which has been extended to use TeX paragraph algorithm, font kerning, true type fonts, etc. You need to explicitly code your macros to use these features. |3. troff is a good and reasonable tool. TeX is too big and complex an |environment in most cases. Although it is true that all of the complexity |of the TeX environment is successfully hidden in virtually all cases. I |find the huge and complex environment offputting. That is overly not true. You can start off with nothing but what TeX loads by default, plus epsf.tex and maybe colordvi.tex for some use cases and you have everything you need. I have never used it, but there is kertex and i am tracking it since, eh, July 2012. It is maintained. It is just the bare core, but includes more than i ever needed #?0|kent:kertex.tar_bomb_git$ git loca|wc -l 20 #?0|kent:kertex.tar_bomb_git$ du -sh . 13M . |Very unfortunately, I see troff disappearing. I've worked with a number of |teams over the last ten years. In every case, I was the oldest engineer. |Also, in each case, I was the only engineer who had even heard of troff. |They understand the problems of binary formats such as Word and |OpenOffice. Their solutions are things like markdown, AsciiDoc, et al. |They are doing this development and making use of these tools without |knowledge of troff. The same is true to a greater or lesser degree with |TeX, except that I've seen TeX used at universities. | |I like that groff and TeX are rock solid and well supported. In fact, I |wrote a report generator for a modern web development framework using |troff. I use it to develop reports on a routine basis. (kissweb.org) |Sadly, however, if word of their existence doesn't get out there, I see |them both disappearing in not much longer than a generation. This would be |sad indeed. Gee, the current hip top of the pops is to not even include generated documentation in release tarballs no more! Heck, i even know a project that took a year-long-not-modified manual page and converted it into some so-called text format. It thus needs a software which happily announces itself as "ronn: the opposite of roff", yieha! I mean ruby ok, there are some such tools which require Haskell, which in turn requires a binary runtime package (or a huuuuge source ball). No no, really not. I mean really. You develop it, you decide it is time for a release, you do test the convertability do you, why not include the 10 kilobytes for your is-anyway-almost-a-stub manual?? In fact these balls nowadays include .github subirectories for github workflows, which is much larger than the manual. Sigh. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 734 bytes --] On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 3:37 PM Richard Salz <rich.salz@gmail.com> wrote: > > It's a double edged sword. TeX looks better but you instantly know it is >> TeX, it has a particular look. Troff looks just fine to me, and you don't >> know it is Troff, Word, or what. >> > > Oh, does *roff support Comic Sans now? > This is interesting; I've always felt like I could pick out troff pretty readily; I agree that TeX has a certain "look" to it (at least by default), but I always felt the same about troff as well. Less flippantly, I know it's TeX is probably mostly about the fonts. > Agreed, I suspect the same is true of my subjective interpretation of troff as well. Well, with TeX, it's the fonts and the math. - Dan C. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1539 bytes --]
Steffen Nurpmeso writes:
> Note that heirloom doctools (on github) is a SysV-derived *roff
Wow, thanks for mentioning this. I was unaware of it. When I
recently wrote that it would be nice to add TeX's 2D formatting
to troff I didn't realize that it had already been done.
Something new to play with.
Jon
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 398 bytes --] On Jan 10, 2022, at 12:33 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > TeX looks better but you instantly know it is > TeX, it has a particular look. Perhaps you’re thinking of documents using Computer Modern fonts, typeset using LaTeX’s document classes. Check out the examples here: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1319/showcase-of-beautiful-typography-done-in-tex-friends [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 949 bytes --]
On 2022-01-10 16:04, Dan Cross wrote (in part):
> Well, with TeX, it's the fonts and the math.
Well, my preferred font with LaTeX is Palatino.
N.
Dan Cross writes:
> This is interesting; I've always felt like I could pick out troff pretty
> readily; I agree that TeX has a certain "look" to it (at least by default),
> but I always felt the same about troff as well.
My guess this is more about how ms(7) does page layout. I can spot
those documents from a mile away :-)
But older versions of troff can often be spotted by how box corners
don't always line up properly.
A lot of people get turned off by how troff markup can often look
like line noise. That's true, but if you spend the time to actually
learn the syntax (and it's really not that hard), you can't help
but be overwhelmed by the beauty of its self-consistency. Although
after three decades I still can't wrap my head around traps and
diversions :-P
--lyndon
On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 06:25:08PM -0800, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) wrote:
> but be overwhelmed by the beauty of its self-consistency. Although
> after three decades I still can't wrap my head around traps and
> diversions :-P
Traps are easy, end of the page. Diversions are easy, it's a bucket
to put stuff in. Environments are harder.
Hi Jon, > Steffen Nurpmeso writes: > > Note that heirloom doctools (on github) is a SysV-derived *roff > > Wow, thanks for mentioning this. I was unaware of it. When > I recently wrote that it would be nice to add TeX's 2D formatting > to troff I didn't realize that it had already been done. > > Something new to play with. There's also Neatroff by Ali Gholami Rudi. It has TeX's paragraph formatting and several other new features, taking from Plan 9, Heirloom, and Groff. IIRC, it's an implementation from scratch. https://litcave.rudi.ir links to its introductary PDF in the first paragraph, https://litcave.rudi.ir/neatroff.pdf, and a Typesetting section below the change-log. -- Cheers, Ralph.
On the subject of documtation of [nt]roff, no one seems to have mentioned Narain Gehani's two editions of ``Document Formatting and Typesetting on the UNIX System'' (700+ pages), and a second two-author volume that covers grap, mv, ms, and troff. There is a table of contents of the second edition recorded here: http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/typeset.html#Gehani:1987:DFT There is an entry in that file for the first edition too http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/typeset.html#Gehani:1986:DF The second volume, co-authored with Steven Lally, is covered here: http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/typeset.html#Gehani:1988:DFT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe@math.utah.edu - - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe@acm.org beebe@computer.org - - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 400 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 6:13 AM Ralph Corderoy <ralph@inputplus.co.uk> wrote: There's also Neatroff by Ali Gholami Rudi. It has TeX's paragraph > formatting and several other new features, taking from Plan 9, > Heirloom, and Groff. > I remember reading somewhere that some versions of `more' and/or `less' used TeX paragraphing when breaking long lines for display, but I can't track it down now. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 985 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2163 bytes --] On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 2:22 PM Jon Forrest <nobozo@gmail.com> wrote: > > TeX badly need an official rewrite in a modern programming language > (e.g. Go, Rust, even C). The rewrite should drop support for the > .dvi format, and use .pdf instead. It should also make use of > modern hardware capabilities and not have any built-in limits > to how much memory gets used. > > These issues are well recognized by the TeX community but with > Knuth not willing to be the BDFL, TeX is floundering. > > (I don't mean any of this as criticism of TeX. It's a truly > miraculous program that was created in a different time.) > > Jon > > Although I'm not connected with the TeX community, I don't agree with much of what you said. 1. TeX source to C is fine - stable and works. It would be impossible to rewrite TeX in any other language without introducing bugs and incompatibilities. Leaving TeX as-is means that it can be converted to other languages too if/when C goes out of style. TeX as-is is exactly what it is. Anything else wouldn't be TeX. 2. Drop DVI? Are you kidding me? Although PDF may be popular now, that may not be the case 20 years from now. A device-independent format is what is needed, and that's what DVI is. TeX is guaranteed to produce the exact same output 100 years from now. 3. I am curious about memory limitations within TeX. 4. Knuth is getting up in age. Someone will have to take over. I suppose #4 was my whole point about both TeX and troff. They're both great tools. Perhaps people used them in the past because there weren't many other solutions. You had to learn them. These days people prefer the simpler tools such as Word, OpenOffice, etc. Although they can't produce the same quality, they can produce sufficient quality with a smaller learning curve. Don't get me wrong, I despise Word. I just don't find my feelings echoed very much. Some things TeX and troff are going to need in order to continue: 1. Continue to be maintained 2. An effort to make knowledge of them wider will have to occur if they are to continue. 3. A case for their benefit will have to be made and dispersed. Blake McBride [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2881 bytes --]
On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 04:48:12PM -0600, Blake McBride wrote:
> Some things TeX and troff are going to need in
> order to continue:
>
> 1. Continue to be maintained
>
> 2. An effort to make knowledge of them wider will have to occur if they
> are to continue.
>
> 3. A case for their benefit will have to be made and dispersed.
Well, someone could do what I tried (and failed) to do: make Word
produce high quality eqn/tbl/pic/troff source as their internal
format.
There was such a thing for TeX, can't remember the name, but my
Dad (very computer not savvy) used it to write a book. It was
WYSIWYG but spit out TeX.
Blake McBride writes:
> I suppose #4 was my whole point about both TeX and troff. They're both
> great tools. Perhaps people used them in the past because there weren't
> many other solutions. You had to learn them. These days people prefer the
> simpler tools such as Word, OpenOffice, etc. Although they can't produce
> the same quality, they can produce sufficient quality with a smaller
> learning curve. Don't get me wrong, I despise Word. I just don't find my
> feelings echoed very much. Some things TeX and troff are going to need in
> order to continue:
I disagree with your characterization that things like Word are simpler tools.
They're way more complex than troff or TeX, both in code and usability.
FYI, last time I saw Don he was asked what his biggest mistake ever was.
His response was making the basic unit size in TeX a power of 2 instead
of a power of 10.
While I'm at it, a shill also asked him what his favorite joke was. His
answer:
A guy goes into the county clerk and asks to legally change his name.
The clerk asks "What would you like to change it to?"
The guy responds "Control G".
The clerk says "That rings a bell."
This is clearly getting off track of TUHS. I'll stop after this reply. > *From:* Blake McBride <blake1024@gmail.com> > *Date:* January 11, 2022 at 2:48:23 PM PST > *To:* Jon Forrest <nobozo@gmail.com> > *Cc:* TUHS main list <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> > *Subject:* *[TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7))* > Although I'm not connected with the TeX community, I don't agree with > much of what you said. > > 1. TeX source to C is fine - stable and works. It would be > impossible to rewrite TeX in any other language without introducing > bugs and incompatibilities. Leaving TeX as-is means that it can be > converted to other languages too if/when C goes out of style. TeX > as-is is exactly what it is. Anything else wouldn't be TeX. I agree that Web->C works but it's a major obstacle in doing any development work on TeX. Try making a major change in the Web source that requires debugging. Anything that can pass the TeX Trip Test can be called TeX. I know of a full C reimplementation that passes the test but the author doesn't want to make it free software. There are other rewrites out there that could be candidates but someone will enough power will have to proclaim one as the official TeX alternative. > 2. Drop DVI? Are you kidding me? Although PDF may be popular now, > that may not be the case 20 years from now. A device-independent > format is what is needed, and that's what DVI is. TeX is guaranteed > to produce the exact same output 100 years from now. And .PDF isn't? .DVI was great until .PDF matured. .DVI has almost no penetration these days, whereas .PDF is everywhere. I'm not saying that .PDF will always be the proper alternative but a properly rewritten TeX should make it much easier to replace .PDF will whatever comes next. > 3. I am curious about memory limitations within TeX. TeX has various fixed sized memory pools, and contains clever code to work around limited memory. Some of the newer TeXs, like LuaTeX, use dynamic allocation but this isn't official. Given how primitive things were when TeX was developed it's a miracle it works as well as it does. > 4. Knuth is getting up in age. Someone will have to take over. Exactly. I don't follow the TeX community so I don't know what they're doing about this. Jon Forrest
I recall attending a TeX lecture by Knuth around 1981. He said he wasn't
satisfied with the character layout from other formatting programs,
which drove him to write TeX. He illustrated in great detail the kerning
and exact placement of the font characters next to each other. I
couldn't tell the difference, but clearly it was very important to him.
He wanted his documents to look perfect.
On 1/10/22 12:33 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 01:00:15PM -0600, Blake McBride wrote:
>> 2. Looking at the output, it is my opinion that TeX produces
>> better-looking documents.
> It's a double edged sword. TeX looks better but you instantly know it is
> TeX, it has a particular look. Troff looks just fine to me, and you don't
> know it is Troff, Word, or what.
On Tue, 11 Jan 2022, Larry McVoy wrote:
> Well, someone could do what I tried (and failed) to do: make Word
> produce high quality eqn/tbl/pic/troff source as their internal format.
I doubt whether that will ever happen; M$ like to keep their internal
format proprietary (and apparently change it with each release) to keep
third-parties out.
-- Dave
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 746 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 5:18 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 04:48:12PM -0600, Blake McBride wrote: > > 3. A case for their benefit will have to be made and dispersed. > > Well, someone could do what I tried (and failed) to do: make Word > produce high quality eqn/tbl/pic/troff source as their internal > format. > As I said earlier, I despise Word for many reasons. I think making Word, or any proprietary software, do anything as, in the long haul, a waste of time. > > There was such a thing for TeX, can't remember the name, but my > Dad (very computer not savvy) used it to write a book. It was > WYSIWYG but spit out TeX. > Probably LyX <https://www.lyx.org/>. I use it frequently. Blake McBride [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1321 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 873 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 6:07 PM Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote: > Blake McBride writes: > > I suppose #4 was my whole point about both TeX and troff. They're both > > great tools. Perhaps people used them in the past because there weren't > > many other solutions. You had to learn them. These days people prefer > the > > simpler tools such as Word, OpenOffice, etc. Although they can't produce > > the same quality, they can produce sufficient quality with a smaller > > learning curve. Don't get me wrong, I despise Word. I just don't find > my > > feelings echoed very much. Some things TeX and troff are going to need > in > > order to continue: > > I disagree with your characterization that things like Word are simpler > tools. > They're way more complex than troff or TeX, both in code and usability. > We'll have to agree to disagree. --blake [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1323 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 435 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 6:30 PM Nemo Nusquam <cym224@gmail.com> wrote: > On 2022-01-11 17:48, Blake McBride wrote (in part): > > > 4. Knuth is getting up in age. Someone will have to take over. > > > Someone has: https://www.latex-project.org/latex3/ > Although that page talks about LaTeX (a macro package) a lot, it doesn't mention support for TeX (the actual processor). Tex is like troff LaTeX is like mm or ms Blake McBride [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2158 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1461 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 6:45 PM Jon Forrest <nobozo@gmail.com> wrote: > I know of > a full C reimplementation that passes the test but the author doesn't > want to make it free software. > Although it is possible, I find this hard to believe. I can't imagine spending as much time as would be required to duplicate something that already exists. > > There are other rewrites out there that could be candidates but someone > will enough power will have to proclaim one as the official TeX > alternative. > Again, hard to believe. > > > 2. Drop DVI? Are you kidding me? Although PDF may be popular now, > > that may not be the case 20 years from now. A device-independent > > format is what is needed, and that's what DVI is. TeX is guaranteed > > to produce the exact same output 100 years from now. > > And .PDF isn't? > No. It isn't. It is an Adobe product. > > .DVI was great until .PDF matured. .DVI has almost no penetration > these days, whereas .PDF is everywhere. DVI was never meant to have any penetration. It was always intended to be an intermediary format. > I'm not saying that .PDF > will always be the proper alternative but a properly rewritten TeX > should make it much easier to replace .PDF will whatever comes > next. > Again, given the complexity of a proper TeX, and its declining popularity, I find it ver hard to believe that someone would spend the time to duplicate, with enhancements, it. Blake McBride [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2568 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 661 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 7:20 PM Mary Ann Horton <mah@mhorton.net> wrote: > I recall attending a TeX lecture by Knuth around 1981. He said he wasn't > satisfied with the character layout from other formatting programs, > which drove him to write TeX. He illustrated in great detail the kerning > and exact placement of the font characters next to each other. I > couldn't tell the difference, but clearly it was very important to him. > He wanted his documents to look perfect. > Yes! That goes to one of my original points. While it is true that CM fonts have a particular look that may be interpreted as "better", there is a lot more to it. Blake McBride [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1063 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 532 bytes --] <…> >> > 2. Drop DVI? Are you kidding me? Although PDF may be popular now, >> > that may not be the case 20 years from now. A device-independent >> > format is what is needed, and that's what DVI is. TeX is guaranteed >> > to produce the exact same output 100 years from now. >> >> And .PDF isn't? > > No. It isn't. It is an Adobe product. Check out ISO 32000-2:2020. I think it’s ok in 2022 to say that PDF has escaped Adobe and is an open standard, suitable for long-life documents, etc. d [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1120 bytes --]
Don Knuth talks at length about how TeX & MetaFont came about etc. in his Web of Stories interview in parts 50 through 70. In Part 56 he does say he looked at "the system developed at Bell Labs", presumably troff. In part 68 he talks about the importance of stability fot TeX and later talks about LaTeX and ConTeXt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzqhuWBClcM&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzeNLngr1JqyQki3wdoGrCn&index=56 I must say I am a fan of TeX/LaTeX and not a fan of nroff/troff -- I don't like the troff look and I don't like the markup. The nice thing is we can choose whatever typesetting tools we want! I played with other alternatives such as lout and Sile but didn't like them all that much. I immediately liked the TeX's model of boxes and glue. I like the fact that I can typeset Indic language text beautifully. But like any complex tool, you have to take time to learn it and practice to get proficient at it. At the same time I am not a fan of the way Knuth does literate programming. What I'd like is a two view editor where I can jump from code to related documentation and vice versa. And when you're working on one, the related part in the other view highlighted. In this world I don't want to deal with files and directories -- just one virtual document, however it is stored put under version control! > On Jan 11, 2022, at 5:19 PM, Mary Ann Horton <mah@mhorton.net> wrote: > > I recall attending a TeX lecture by Knuth around 1981. He said he wasn't satisfied with the character layout from other formatting programs, which drove him to write TeX. He illustrated in great detail the kerning and exact placement of the font characters next to each other. I couldn't tell the difference, but clearly it was very important to him. He wanted his documents to look perfect. > > On 1/10/22 12:33 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: >> On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 01:00:15PM -0600, Blake McBride wrote: >>> 2. Looking at the output, it is my opinion that TeX produces >>> better-looking documents. >> It's a double edged sword. TeX looks better but you instantly know it is >> TeX, it has a particular look. Troff looks just fine to me, and you don't >> know it is Troff, Word, or what.
> On Jan 11, 2022, at 3:18 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 04:48:12PM -0600, Blake McBride wrote:
>> Some things TeX and troff are going to need in
>> order to continue:
>>
>> 1. Continue to be maintained
>>
>> 2. An effort to make knowledge of them wider will have to occur if they
>> are to continue.
>>
>> 3. A case for their benefit will have to be made and dispersed.
>
> Well, someone could do what I tried (and failed) to do: make Word
> produce high quality eqn/tbl/pic/troff source as their internal
> format.
>
> There was such a thing for TeX, can't remember the name, but my
> Dad (very computer not savvy) used it to write a book. It was
> WYSIWYG but spit out TeX.
May be Textures by Blue Sky Research?
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1086 bytes --] Knuth made an excellent point, maybe in _Coders At Work_ about literate programming and why it didn't catch on: in general, about 1 out of 20 people can be a really good programmer. In general, one of 20 people can be a really good writer. These talents are largely uncorrelated. Sure, being competent at either is a teachable skill. But no one wants to read either a program or a narrative written by someone who's merely OK at it. Adam On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 7:20 PM David Arnold <davida@pobox.com> wrote: > <…> > > > 2. Drop DVI? Are you kidding me? Although PDF may be popular now, >> > that may not be the case 20 years from now. A device-independent >> > format is what is needed, and that's what DVI is. TeX is guaranteed >> > to produce the exact same output 100 years from now. >> >> And .PDF isn't? >> > > No. It isn't. It is an Adobe product. > > > Check out ISO 32000-2:2020. > > I think it’s ok in 2022 to say that PDF has escaped Adobe and is an open > standard, suitable for long-life documents, etc. > > > > d > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1855 bytes --]
Been reading the heirloom docs. Remember one thing that I disliked about troff which maybe Doug can explain. It's the language in the docs. I never understood "interpolating a register" to have any relation to the definition of interpolate that I learned in math. Made it a bit hard to learn initially. Any memory of why that term was used?
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3239 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 9:11 PM Bakul Shah <bakul@iitbombay.org> wrote: > Don Knuth talks at length about how TeX & MetaFont came about etc. in his Web of Stories interview in parts 50 through 70. In Part 56 he does say he looked at "the system developed at Bell Labs", presumably troff. Among the Bell Labs technical reports I read when I was younger, a trilogy by MD McIlroy on the challenges drawing ellipses stand out: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.49.3440&rep=rep1&type=pdf These stuck in my mind and some relatively short time later, I read how the analogous problem was approached in TeX. The solution there was to treat the shape as if it were drawn using a pen with a diamond-shaped nib. From the MetaFont book: Similarly, some diagonal lines of slope~1 digitize to be twice as dark as others, when a truly circular pen is considered. But the diamond-shaped nib that \MF\ uses for a pencircle of diameter~1 does not have this defect; all straight lines of the same slope will digitize to lines of uniform darkness. Moreover, curved lines drawn with the diamond nib always yield one pixel per column when they move more-or-less horizontally (with slopes between $+1$ and $-1$), and they always yield one pixel per row when they move vertically. By contrast, the outlines of curves drawn with circular pens produce occasional ``blots.'' Circles and ellipses of all diameters can profitably be replaced by polygons whose sub-pixel corrections to the ideal shape will produce better digitizations; \MF\ does this in accordance with the interesting theory developed by John~D. ^{Hobby} in his Ph.D. dissertation (Stanford University, 1985). If I can be so bold as to offer an interpretation: Doug's approximations treat ellipses as mathematical objects and algorithmically determine what pixels are closest to points on the infinitesimally-thin curves, while Knuth's (or one his students') method acknowledges that the curve has a width defined by the nib; any "pixel" the nib touches becomes part of the figure. Perhaps I'm wrong on the details, but it hardly matters; my point is that there was clearly interesting work done in the area in both places. I find it impossible that neither Knuth nor Hobby were unaware of McIlroy's work and vice-versa; of course he would have known about and examined troff just as the Bell Labs folks knew about TeX. These were hot areas of practical research! This is also a good reminder that not only was Unix itself a subject of research, but it supported a lot of other research at Bell Labs and elsewhere. On this list, we tend to focus on the tool, but that tool was put to use building many more things as well. > [snip] > I must say I am a fan of TeX/LaTeX and not a fan of nroff/troff -- I don't like the troff look and I don't like the markup. I've always admired the look of troff. I wonder if, in retrospect, that is due to me mentally tying the presentation with so many formative documents that were strong early influences. Similarly, I love the look of Tex (even the CM fonts). They are of course different, but I find each beautiful in different ways. > The nice thing is we can choose whatever typesetting tools we want! This! - Dan C. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3757 bytes --]
Hi Jon, > I never understood "interpolating a register" to have any relation to > the definition of interpolate that I learned in math. The first definition makes sense of it: 1. (transitive, intransitive) To introduce (something) between other things; especially to insert (possibly spurious) words into a text. in verse 74, the second line is clearly interpolated 2. (mathematics) To estimate the value of a function between two tabulated points. 3. (computing) During the course of processing some data, and in response to a directive in that data, to fetch data from a different source and process it in-line along with the original data. ― https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interpolate -- Cheers, Ralph.
On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 06:12:45PM -0800, Bakul Shah wrote:
>
>
> > On Jan 11, 2022, at 3:18 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 04:48:12PM -0600, Blake McBride wrote:
> >> Some things TeX and troff are going to need in
> >> order to continue:
> >>
> >> 1. Continue to be maintained
> >>
> >> 2. An effort to make knowledge of them wider will have to occur if they
> >> are to continue.
> >>
> >> 3. A case for their benefit will have to be made and dispersed.
> >
> > Well, someone could do what I tried (and failed) to do: make Word
> > produce high quality eqn/tbl/pic/troff source as their internal
> > format.
> >
> > There was such a thing for TeX, can't remember the name, but my
> > Dad (very computer not savvy) used it to write a book. It was
> > WYSIWYG but spit out TeX.
>
> May be Textures by Blue Sky Research?
That's it.
> On Jan 12, 2022, at 8:49 AM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 06:12:45PM -0800, Bakul Shah wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Jan 11, 2022, at 3:18 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> There was such a thing for TeX, can't remember the name, but my
>>> Dad (very computer not savvy) used it to write a book. It was
>>> WYSIWYG but spit out TeX.
>>
>> May be Textures by Blue Sky Research?
>
> That's it.
LyX is a venerable and not entirely unsuccessful attempt to put a WYSIWYG front end on LaTeX. Every few years I try to use it and then go back to something else.
Mary Ann Horton wrote in <695e2970-00f2-ab55-8c1a-9fbd03add77f@mhorton.net>: |I recall attending a TeX lecture by Knuth around 1981. He said he wasn't |satisfied with the character layout from other formatting programs, |which drove him to write TeX. He illustrated in great detail the kerning |and exact placement of the font characters next to each other. I |couldn't tell the difference, but clearly it was very important to him. |He wanted his documents to look perfect. I find with proof-reading roff provides very pleasant results; the german translation of K&R Programming in C (2nd Ed., ANSI C; so many credits to people on this list!!!) was produced in roff (Liangs hyphenation, Kernighans pic, Lesks tbl, Kernighan and Cherrys eqn, XENIX-adjusted d-i troff of ELAN; November 1989), it could not look better. I personally feel peeved when my documents do not look acceptable, but, other than that, from computer documents i do miss the spiritual, the contemplative and meditative side that calligraphically beautiful documents represent. Just recently for example a Thora that was saved from the flames reappeared here in Germany, it would be yet another massive loss of culture if this became binary or quantum. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)
Ralph Corderoy writes:
> Hi Jon,
>
> > I never understood "interpolating a register" to have any relation to
> > the definition of interpolate that I learned in math.
>
> The first definition makes sense of it:
>
> 1. (transitive, intransitive) To introduce (something) between other
> things; especially to insert (possibly spurious) words into a text.
>
> in verse 74, the second line is clearly interpolated
>
> 2. (mathematics) To estimate the value of a function between two
> tabulated points.
>
> 3. (computing) During the course of processing some data, and in
> response to a directive in that data, to fetch data from a different
> source and process it in-line along with the original data.
>
> ― https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interpolate
>
> --
> Cheers, Ralph.
Yeah, I looked it up too. Yes, the argument can be made that one of the
definitions can be forced to sort of fit; I'm guessing that #3 didn't
exist when troff was written. So I'm gonna stick to my point that using
that word is awkward and makes the document a bit harder to understand.
Especially in the context of programming languages, of which troff is one.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody talks about "a = b;" as interpolating b.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1808 bytes --] At 2022-01-12T09:53:28-0800, Jon Steinhart wrote: > Ralph Corderoy writes: > > > I never understood "interpolating a register" to have any relation > > > to the definition of interpolate that I learned in math. > > > > The first definition makes sense of it: > > > > 1. (transitive, intransitive) To introduce (something) between > > other things; especially to insert (possibly spurious) words > > into a text. > > > > in verse 74, the second line is clearly interpolated [...] > Yeah, I looked it up too. Yes, the argument can be made that one of > the definitions can be forced to sort of fit; I'm guessing that #3 > didn't exist when troff was written. So I'm gonna stick to my point > that using that word is awkward and makes the document a bit harder to > understand. Especially in the context of programming languages, of > which troff is one. To the best of my knowledge, nobody talks about > "a = b;" as interpolating b. I've found the term highly useful and have greatly increased its usage in groff documentation. (I have been a stickler for a disciplined lexicon in every software project I've been involved in.) I prefer it to a popular alternative, "expansion", which is misleading--especially to novices, who then make the reasonable assumption, given the everyday meaning of that word, that whatever results from the process will be larger in some sense than what was there before. An argument could be made for the word "replacement", but I've found it useful to reserve that plain-spoken term for discussion of things a human might do (perhaps in the course of editing a document or developing a macro). To my ear, "interpolation" sounds fancy enough to refer to something you let a machine do, without being _excessively_ technical in tone. Regards, Branden [-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --] [-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 601 bytes --] On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 1:27 PM G. Branden Robinson < g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote: An argument could be made for the word "replacement", but I've found it > useful to reserve that plain-spoken term for discussion of things a > human might do (perhaps in the course of editing a document or > developing a macro). To my ear, "interpolation" sounds fancy enough to > refer to something you let a machine do, without being _excessively_ > technical in tone. > Strictly speaking, what is interpolated is the _contents_ of the register, not the register itself. It never hurts to be too clear. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1313 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1406 bytes --] On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 9:01 PM Blake McBride <blake1024@gmail.com> wrote: > 2. Drop DVI? Are you kidding me? Although PDF may be popular now, >> > > that may not be the case 20 years from now. A device-independent >> > format is what is needed, and that's what DVI is. TeX is guaranteed >> > to produce the exact same output 100 years from now. >> > Well, provided there are DVI-to-whatever converters then. it's a systems problem. What we really need is gcc support for some processor that is easy to emulate (at least the userland). Historically that was MIPS; now it's probably RISC/V. Or, I suppose, MMIX; there is a very partial Verilog description at <https://github.com/tommythorn/fpgammix> that would make it possible to create a hardware integer MMIX CPU using FPGAs. And .PDF isn't? >> > > No. It isn't. It is an Adobe product. > Up to a point, Minister. PDF/A is an ISO standard that tracks PDF 1.4 or PDF 1.7. It is meant for creating archivable PDFs, so it excludes linked fonts (as opposed to embedded ones, which are allowed), JavaScript, audio/video, encryption, external references, etc. For troff purposes, we don't need any of that, so it's just a matter of setting the metadata correctly. ISO standards can be withdrawn, but they remain available; I doubt this one will be, since libraries are depending on it. There are lots of FLOSS toolkits to generate PDFs. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3010 bytes --]
nevertheless it's still an Adobe product. --- Ursprüngliche Nachricht --- Von: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> Datum: 12.01.2022 20:54:34 An: Blake McBride <blake1024@gmail.com> Betreff: Re: [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) an Adobe product.
> If I can be so bold as to offer an interpretation: Doug's approximations > treat ellipses as mathematical objects and algorithmically determine what > pixels are closest to points on the infinitesimally-thin curves, while > Knuth's (or one his students') method acknowledges that the curve has a > width defined by the nib Just so. > I find it impossible that neither Knuth nor Hobby were unaware of McIlroy's > work and vice-versa; of course he would have known about and examined troff > just as the Bell Labs folks knew about TeX. We were generally aware of each other's work. My papers on drawing lines, circles, and ellipses on rasters, though, were barely connected to troff. Troff did not contain any drawing algorithms. That work was relegated to the rendering programs that interpreted ditroff output. Thus publication-quality rendering with support for thick lines was outsourced to Adobe and Mergenthaler. Various PostScript or ditroff postprocessors for screen-based terminals were written in house. These programs paid little or no attention to fonts and line widths. But the blit renderers made a tenuous connection between my ellipse algorithm and troff, since my work on the topic was stimulated by Rob's need for an ellipse generator. Doug
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 504 bytes --] Only in the sense that Fortran is an IBM product. (IBM's Fortran compilers and runtimes are IBM products, but that's another matter.) On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 5:13 AM Thomas Paulsen <thomas.paulsen@firemail.de> wrote: > nevertheless it's still an Adobe product. > > --- Ursprüngliche Nachricht --- > Von: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org> > Datum: 12.01.2022 20:54:34 > An: Blake McBride <blake1024@gmail.com> > Betreff: Re: [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7)) > > an Adobe product. > > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1033 bytes --]