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Re: [groff] [UTROFF] conclusion


From: Pierre-Jean
Subject: Re: [groff] [UTROFF] conclusion
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2017 17:54:02 +0100
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Hello Gour,

Gour <address@hidden> wrote:

> I just wonder how Troff/Heirloom does compare with Mom package when it comes 
> to
> quality typesetting (aka 21th century needs)?

Mom is a macro set, while Troff/Heirloom is the interpreter of the
macro set, so, we can't compare things like this.

A proper comparision would be between Groff, Heirloom Troff, and
Neatroff on one side, and Mom, Utmac, ms, me, on the other side.

1) For typographic purposes (and for typographic purposes only),
Heirloom Troff and Neatroff are, in my opinion, far better than Groff,
because they adjust paragraphs "at once". Comparing between Neatroff
and Heirloom would need a set of examples, but at a first glance, I'd
say that while on the paper Heirloom has some more features
(micro-typography), its adjustment algoritm is also bugged, and I
would tend to favor Neatroff.

2) With some hacks if not out of the box, Mom probably works well
enough on Neatroff to take advantage of its features. It would
need much more work to port it on Heirloom Troff because of the
needed \P line trap I wrote about on one of my mails.

3) If you want to compare macros for typographic purpose only, I would
advise you to look at the vertical alignment, ie, headings should not
break the vertical grid. I know that Utmac takes care of it (if the
alignment is broken, it is a bug), I don't know for Mom, but since
Peter Schafter has a taste for typography, I believe he did take care
about that too. The other typographic things (such as fonts), will be
more easily adjusted if they don't fit your needs.

4) All this being said, there are many other things than typography
that you should consider when choosing a macro set and a troff
intepreter: long term maintenance, easiness to use and install,
performances of the pre- and post- processors, configurability,
layout, syntax, and a myriad of other things. All those things
considered the couple groff/mom is a very solid choice.

Kind Regards,
Pierre-Jean.




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