Re: [Groff] The future redux

[Clarke Echols]

On 02/27/2014 05:28 PM, Tethys wrote:
> Deri James writes:
>
>
> I firmly believe that groff doesn't necessarily need to change to stay
> relevant (arguably, it hasn't been relevant to the majority for some time
> anyway). Yes, separation of presentation from content is important. But
> does it need to be done within groff? I'm not so sure. You risk turning
> groff into something else entirely. At which point, why not just leave
> groff as is, and write the something else as a separate program? Potentially
> one that outputs groff input files if necessary, and HTML/whatever as an
> alternative for those that want such things.

The big strength of Unix is its original design paradigm: An operating
system made of discrete software components, each of which does one
thing very well.

Consequently, shell scripts I wrote in 1989 on HP-UX will run unaltered
in 2014 on my Linux machine if I have nothing more than the same files
in the same directories.  No changes to 1989 vi, no changes to sed, or
any others.

Microsoft can't even get from one year to the next without breaking
everything.

Packaging features into combinations that can use existing components
may be workable, but sofware's not my forte.

My preference is let groff be groff and remain a useful tool that other
programs can use in a pipe or other means.

Clarke