[TUHS] roff(7)

Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com
Sat Jan 1 09:40:39 AEST 2022


On Sat, Jan 01, 2022 at 09:07:49AM +1000, George Michaelson wrote:
> But macros aside, anyone who had used runoff had a
> massively simpler path into roff than TeX. My future was set. The phd
> students at Leeds looked down their noses at me for using cryptic .2 letter
> inline magic. They were the high priests of things, I was just a computer
> operator.  Watching them spend weeks and weeks wrangling a one em offset
> problem stopping perfection in print was.. entertaining.

I was program committee chair for Linux Expo in 1999 (all that means is
I formatted the proceedings into a book).  I let people use LaTex but
encouraged troff.  A few people tried out troff and their reaction was
"Wow, that was so easy and groff is really fast!"

The only negative reaction was table of contents complaints, LaTex is
2 pass so it can do them, roff is one pass so you have to fiddle with
things.  A lot.

I've used *roff for almost 40 years and I've never had the urge to use
something else.  I wrote a paper a while back where they insisted on
LaTex and it just made me like *roff more.

It's Betamax and VHS all over again, the crappy answer won.

--lm


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