[TUHS] man-page style

[Larry McVoy]

On 2018-11-28 23:25 , arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> Any chance you, or someone else, could write that missing manual that
> explains the "why" of the various troff features?
> 
> I've been through CSTR 54 a few times too, although I haven't tried
> to write a macro package from scratch, and I have to admit that there
> are things that mystify me.

There is a lot to be mystified about in *roff but there is a lot to like
as well.  If you are going to start to look into one, I'd strongly urge
you to look at groff & friends.  It's by far the most actively developed
tool in the roff family.

I'm happy to answer what questions I can (though there is stuff that's
faded like the whole environment stack thing).  I've not written an
entire macro package either, but I've written a bunch of macros.  And
done a bunch of stuff in pic, I love pic.  I got James to put the

`i'th last <whatever>

construct into pic.  Super useful.