On 11 Mar, Rev Simon Rumble wrote: > > Eh? I use it all the time. Unless you mean, "use groff instead"? I > > have to agree, that I think nowadays the groff version of troff is > > better than the original, as of about last year. > > No, don't use troff or groff. There are _FAR_ better ways to lay out > a document that don't have you learning incredibly obscure commands > and syntax. Troff has had its day. > > > it's almost fast enough to do interactively. > > My point precisely. Use something that _IS_ interactive, or at least > something that is a bit easier to learn.
For a start, it's unusual to bother to learn to use raw troff. One generally picks a macro package, and uses that instead. I use mm, and man for man pages; some people like the me or ms macro packages. A rare few write their own packages. All these packages are easier to learn than HTML, IMHO. Things like troff and TeX are good because they separate the layout from the input, and don't require manual intervention to construct the source files, and can easily use scripts and filters to do complex things that in Word, say, requires a monolithic piece of software with some added scripting language grafted on. troff and TeX and Lout follow the Unix philosophy (programs that you can use as building blocks or pieces in bigger systems), and still have their place, IMHO. For some things they're better than WYSIWYG systems, for other purposes they're not. luke -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
