Re: [TUHS] TeX and groff (was: roff(7))

[Blake McBride <blake1024@gmail.com>]

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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

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