3 ms·
Does anyone else prefer writing troff/tbl/pic/eqn? I always felt that the language of TeX/LaTex was a step backward in user-friendliness.
by wrp 11y ago
Does anyone else prefer writing troff/tbl/pic/eqn? I always felt that the language of TeX/LaTex was a step backward in user-friendliness.
- duaneb 11y agoI found troff syntax to be very hard to debug for parse errors, while you can easily fit the tex tokenizer into your head. There is also much less control in eg alignment of complex tables.
- anjbe 11y agoI’m also one of those who prefers troff. I read all five volumes of Knuth’s Computers and Typesetting cover to cover, and TeX is a beautiful piece of work. But in my preferred alternate universe, two things would be different: Joe Ossanna would not have died young, and AT&T would have been more open with licensing in time for Knuth to use troff as a base for his improvements to the world of typesetting.
- drfuchs 11y agoHe tried, but the syntax was ill-defined, and the typography was poor.
- SixSigma 11y agoI usually use OpenOffice / LibreOffice Equation Editor which is based on eqn. Ironically the on disk format it uses is MathML.
- wrp 11y agoYes. I would use OOo if the equation typesetting wasn't awful. They don't seem to have put any effort into improving it over the years. MS Word typesetting has become quite good, though not up to the best you can get with LaTeX.