Hi, On Sun, Nov 03, 2019 at 02:29:02AM +0100, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > As long as you only *use* macro packages, groff is *much* > easier to use than LaTeX (not least because the quality of > documentation of groff is vastly superior to LaTeX, and LaTeX > documentation is so extremely huge and fragmented that it's > a terrible challenge to find anything you need). > > But once you start modifying macro packages or writing your own > macros, i.e. once you enter into real programming, then it turns > out LaTeX is easier to program than roff(7) because the syntax and > semantics of the low-level roff(7) language are, let's put it > politely, quite unusual and surprising in many details. I know > that because i did write a non-trivial LaTeX module and because i > do maintain one of the larger roff macro packages, upstream at > groff, and besides, i did implement considerable parts of the roff > language in /usr/src/usr.bin/mandoc/roff.c. I actually wrote a semantic markup language shamelessly inspired from mdoc(7) and with simplified roff-like syntax, called “gofrundis” (actual tool is spelled frundis(1)), but primarily intented for authoring novels. It exports to LaTeX, HTML/EPUB or groff mom, and is documented using mdoc(7).
That said, even though the language has quite silently existed for several years, excluding me it still has only two regular users as far as I know. The consequence is that there's not a community providing extension packages for it: anything not covered by the core language frundis_syntax(5) requires you to write some code in LaTeX, HTML or roff/mom and wrap it with macros. It's somewhat extensible, and I used it to write a thesis and export afterwards to LaTeX, because I find the syntax and semantics simpler and more pleasant to use. But I'm not sure I would recommend such non standard use. Yon
