From: "Greg A. Woods" <woods@robohack.ca>
To: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: Re: [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 23:40:03 -0800 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m1j3xUB-0036tPC@more.local> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202002180017.01I0HI0I1415945@darkstar.fourwinds.com>
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At Mon, 17 Feb 2020 16:17:18 -0800, Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark
>
> That's my beef with texinfo; there was already
> an existing functional system and rather than making some improvements a new
> incompatible universe was created.
Actually there wasn't a truly functional documentation system at the
time -- or at least it didn't reach far enough.
I.e. there was no open-source [nt]roff compatible program at the time,
and the mainly available proprietary one produced (for quality printing
purposes) only very convoluted hard-coded output for a quite esoteric
and rare piece of equipment. AT&T's public attempt to solve this
(ditroff) just added more cost and arguably less availability.
Groff didn't arrive until 1990, and as remarkable as it was, it was
unfortunately written in C++ (which dissuaded many for a long time).
(Henry Spencer's "awf" (nroff in Awk) also came out in 1990, but besides
being also too late it was more of a toy; and Chris Lewis' PSroff, also
from just before 1990, only solved part of the problem.)
Texinfo was a legitimate attempt to solve the problem of missing tools,
and at the same time and tried (whether in vain or not) to improve on
what were rather widely believed to be major technical and cultural and
availability deficiencies in existing tools.
Personally I still mostly use Lout these days. :-)
--
Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>
Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com> Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2020-02-18 7:40 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 83+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-02-17 15:20 Doug McIlroy
2020-02-17 16:47 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-17 18:09 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-17 18:39 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-02-17 21:16 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-17 22:50 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-17 23:22 ` Warner Losh
2020-02-18 0:56 ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-18 3:33 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-18 7:27 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-18 0:03 ` Richard Salz
2020-02-18 0:17 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-02-18 0:54 ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-18 1:05 ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-18 7:40 ` Greg A. Woods [this message]
2020-02-18 7:45 ` arnold
2020-02-18 20:24 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-02-18 11:22 ` Rich Morin
2020-02-18 12:28 ` arnold
2020-02-18 12:49 ` U'll Be King of the Stars
2020-02-18 13:23 ` arnold
2020-02-18 15:11 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-18 15:28 ` arnold
2020-02-18 15:36 ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-18 15:43 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-02-18 15:52 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-18 16:40 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-02-18 18:39 ` Steve Nickolas
2020-02-18 21:26 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-18 21:29 ` Wesley Parish
2020-02-19 4:52 ` [TUHS] Open source or free software? (was: man Macro Package and pdfmark) Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2020-02-18 15:48 ` [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark Clem Cole
2020-02-18 16:02 ` Chet Ramey
2020-02-18 16:28 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-18 17:49 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-18 21:46 ` Rich Morin
2020-02-18 16:47 ` Henry Bent
2020-02-18 20:22 ` Greg A. Woods
2020-02-19 4:44 ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-19 18:01 ` Earl Baugh
2020-02-19 18:12 ` Emile Bye
2020-02-19 20:18 ` Michael Huff
2020-02-19 20:34 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-02-19 21:09 ` Henry Bent
2020-02-20 7:27 ` arnold
2020-02-20 7:43 ` Rich Morin
2020-02-20 13:15 ` Dan Cross
2020-02-20 16:23 ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-20 16:34 ` Arthur Krewat
2020-02-20 17:06 ` Al Kossow
2020-02-20 17:24 ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-20 17:48 ` Rich Morin
2020-02-20 20:10 ` Bakul Shah
2020-02-20 20:18 ` Rich Morin
2020-02-20 16:48 ` Nemo
2020-02-20 17:00 ` Larry McVoy
2020-02-20 19:16 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-20 23:45 ` Doug McIntyre
2020-02-21 0:18 ` Warner Losh
2020-02-21 1:14 ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-02-21 8:19 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-21 8:17 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-02-21 10:17 ` arnold
2020-02-21 10:37 ` Ed Bradford
2020-02-21 18:34 ` Heinz Lycklama
2020-02-21 18:59 ` Warner Losh
2020-02-21 21:10 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-21 21:46 ` David Barto
2020-02-22 6:48 ` Ed Bradford
2020-02-22 10:42 ` Al Kossow
2020-02-22 11:01 ` Ed Bradford
2020-02-22 16:38 ` Warner Losh
2020-02-22 18:11 ` arnold
2020-02-22 23:41 ` [TUHS] Mini-UNIX Warren Toomey
2020-02-22 11:08 ` [TUHS] man Macro Package and pdfmark Ed Bradford
2020-02-22 16:40 ` Warner Losh
2020-02-22 16:46 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-22 17:51 ` Heinz Lycklama
2020-02-17 18:55 Noel Chiappa
2020-02-17 20:13 ` Clem Cole
2020-02-17 21:06 ` CHARLES KESTER
2020-02-18 0:36 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-02-18 13:13 Don Hopkins
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