Re: [Groff] Why is it...

[Peter Schaffter]

On Sat, Dec 15, 2007, Robert Thorsby wrote:
> On 15/12/07 04:25:40, Michael Kerpan wrote:
> > ...that groff/troff seems to be written
> > off by so many as "obsolete" ...
> 
> IMO it is all a matter of perceptions.  People think that a 30 year
> old application that, even today, does not have a GUI **must** be
> obsolete.

So true.  I get the feeling, when explaining the clear advantages of
*roff (or TeX, for that matter) to people raised in "gotta-be-GUI",
that they think I'm trying to convince them the Victrola is superior
to the iPod.

> Add to this, *roff does not conform to The Debian Way (which
> includes derivatives, such as *buntu).

After so many years, I still don't quite grasp what The Debian Way
is, and why that works against groff.  Especially since I have never
run any GNU/Linux distro other than Debian, and have used groff
exclusively for all my document needs (groff built from source, of
course).

> There are no modern textbooks on *roff.  The three I have are
> about 20 years old.  How many people are aware of the accompanying
> documentation to Peter's mom macros?

If someone could figure out a way to get funding for writing a
modern text on *roff, I'd take on the project in a heartbeat.  I've
done what I can to make the documentation for mom an advertisement
for groff, but it will never be enough.  A thoroughly edited, hard
copy textbook on *roff is what's needed.

> Finally, we are our own worst enemies.  Those who inhabit this
> list, though incredibly polite and invariably helpful to newbies,
> are always posting about arcane subjects.

Big laugh over this, since both halves of the statement are so
true.

> Today, I use groff for everything, including business letters.

This gets me thinking. *roff has always appeared horribly
intimidating since so much of the available documentation suggests
it's primarily for creating scientific/mathematical/technical
documents, leading average janes-joes to conclude it's too unwieldy
for simpler tasks.

If one were wanting to do some serious *roff advocacy, one would
need to emphasize *roff's usefulness for basic document needs (e.g.
business letters) first, so that users attracted to *roff's way
of doing things could then undertake the sort of exploration that
begins with the question: "Gee--I wonder if *roff can do <fill in
the blank for an advanced task>, too?"

Years ago, I got a copy of the O'Reilly book, _Running Linux._  In
the chapter on text processing, which dealt with *roff and TeX, the
TeX section gave detailed instructions for writing a business letter
using LaTeX; tellingly, the *roff section gave only instructions for
writing a manpage.

-- 
Peter Schaffter