Re: [Groff] Why is it...

[Gunnar Ritter]

"Michael Kerpan" <address@hidden> wrote:

> ...that groff/troff seems to be written off by so many as "obsolete"
> and "only useful for man pages", despite the fact that it can do
> everything that TeX/LaTeX (seemingly the favored non-WYSIWYG document
> processor) can do

First, it cannot. TeX provides much more sophisticated
algorithms at its core. Thus, it can do many formatting
tasks automatically which require manual interaction
with troff. Even though the results are often far away
from perfection, one can rely that they are good enough.

Then, one must not forget that despite its comparatively
many users in certain academic professions, TeX is a niche
software itself. It is, effectively, only used to typeset
equation-related material by people who have no real clue
about typography but do care about certain aspects of the
result. In this area, it is very efficient, and it is not
surprising that there is no place left for troff there.

The strength of troff, in comparison, is that it is much
more comfortable to customize the layout. But those who
actually care about doing that typically do not even know
what a programming language is.

> but while taking up 3 megabytes (as opposed to the
> 300 or so used by the average TeX install)

Who cares? Or do you intend to typeset books on embedded
devices?

> *roff plus -me, -mm or -ms is no harder to use than LaTeX or HTML.
> It can't be availability as the *roff family is basically a required
> component of any Unix-like system. It can't even be font support,
> given that it's MUCH easier to install and use random PostScript fonts
> in groff than in TeX...

Who cares? Most people are completely satisified with
Computer Modern despite the fact that every publication
on font design will teach you to spot it as the hobbyist
work which it is.

You mention PostScript fonts: PostScript fonts have
actually been obsoleted, and it is unlikely that they
will be sold at all in a few years from now. For the
OpenType successor technology, there is no support in
groff, although considerable effort is under way to
fully support them in TeX land, and I support at least
some of the basic features in Heirloom troff. But for
anybody in the Western hemisphere except professional
typographers, fonts are not much more than toys, so
the more recent developments will not make much of a
difference here.

> how can we fix it?

Who, do you think, is the target group?

        Gunnar