On 13 August 2014 12:57, Carsten Kunze <carsten.ku...@arcor.de> wrote:
> Since nobody seems to use troff on P9 I regarded it as off-topic. The traffic is low enough to discuss any matter related to p9(p) here, I believe. And it can be used as a back-reference in the future. >> http://9fans.net/archive/?q=sykora+eqn&go=Grep > > I can't believe that TeX should not produce better results, but > thats really OT... I don't understand what you mean. >> I'd rather say that p9p software is the source these days. > > Really? Ok, if I compare the sources it looks like this. Is this > true for troff only or for p9p in general? > > So p9 troff posts may be better done on the p9p list? I think whoever uses p9p reads this list. I personally even don't know there is a special p9p list. >> troff is a macro language. > > This I completely don't understand. If someone has much time > and uses only low level requests than the word "macro" should > be improper? > > What is not a macro language, i.e. what do you suggest to use instead? > >> Page makeup by postprocessing text formatter output >> by Kernighan & Wyk > > I also do not understand that. It is possible to write very good macro > packages for troff. Also TeX can produce very good documents. Ok, > this is OT again. Just read the document. And it is not only about producing good documents meaning good-looking. It's about scalability and readability, too. Nobody would tell you LaTeX is readable. PlainTeX is, but by itself, it doesn't know much (like plain troff). Twisting a macro language around is often difficult, has many pitfalls, may be difficult to debug, and if it grows beyond a certain level, it collapses. That's at least what I think. Ruda
