Re: [Groff] Using C with glib instead of C++ for groff

[P . Alejandro López-Valencia]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Reid" <address@hidden>
To: "Egil Kvaleberg" <address@hidden>
Cc: "Groff" <address@hidden>
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 9:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Groff] Using C with glib instead of C++ for groff


> C portability issues are a considerable way off topic. The thread was
> about the proposed introducion of glib into groff. I'm strongly
> against this. It's just not acceptable to make another open source-ish
> library a dependency for installing and running groff. Virtually no
> other open source software does this AFAIK.
[snip]
> Once groff starts down this slippery slope, who knows where it will
> end? After the precedent is established, it will make it harder to
> resist adding yet more gratuitous library dependencies that will
> further complicate the job of installing and maintaining an up to date
> version groff.

Hear, Hear! I am willing to live with the fact that groff may use the STL
instead of its own routines, which any modern C++ compiler must support
anyway, but adding gratitious dependencies is preposterous. Besides, and may
B Warken not take this personally, groffer is frosting on the cake, not the
main course meal.

> Does anyone else here remember the days when troff was written in C,
> ran on 16-bit machines and didn't need fancy third-party libraries?

Absoluteluy. PDP-11 with 32Kb of way expensive RAM (worth the same money
needed to buy a Porsche).