Re: [Groff] What should me/mm/ms.. be for?

[Larry Jones]

address@hidden writes:
> 
> The main macro packages for cocument formatting ared
> 'man', 'me', 'mm', 'ms'.
> 
> The question is: what are these respectively best
> suited for? Or, maybe more precisely, what were they
> originally intended to be best suited for?

You already covered man.  My understand of the rest is that they are all
"general purpose" macro packages intended for formatting memos, reports,
letters, books, or whatever.

Mike Lesk at AT&T wrote ms (for ManuScript) as the original general
purpose macro package that was distributed with troff.  It was
subsequently revised at Berkeley, but I don't know whether AT&T ever
distributed the Berkeley version or if it only came with BSD.  Eric
Allman at Berkeley then developed me (presumably for MEmorandum, but I
don't think I've ever seen that explicitly stated) as a better, general
purpose macro package for BSD.  Again, I'm not sure whether AT&T ever
distributed it as well or not.  Not to be outdone, Ted Dolotta at AT&T
then developed mm (Memorandum Macros) as the ultimate, general purpose
macro package.

-Larry Jones

What this games needs are negotiated settlements. -- Calvin