4 ms·

For anyone missing the lede here: the book is typeset in troff. This is astonishing because troff is 40+ years old and AFAIK hasn't gotten significant developme

For anyone missing the lede here: the book is typeset in troff. This is astonishing because troff is 40+ years old and AFAIK hasn't gotten significant development in ~10 years. If it ain't broke don't fix it. http://www.troff.org/history.html http://www.troff.org/history.html

coliveira 11y ago
Kernighan has always used troff, so it is not a surprise that he is still using it. He can do things with troff that most people would have a hard time to do with LaTeX. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that troff is better, in fact as you said it has not been updated for a long time. For someone starting now, it is so much easier to learn and be productive with LaTeX instead of troff.
jklowden 11y ago
I wrote to Kernighan a few years ago, when "D is for Digital" came out, to ask him, in effect, if troff had been made obsolete by TeX. At the time I had begun using it, and wondered if it was worth investing my time to learn. He answered that he still preferred to use groff, having tried alternatives. Since then I have used groff exclusively for writing documentation and papers. It never runs out of gas, and always produces attractive output. It offers a complete suite -- math, tables, pictures, graphs -- all in one package. It's fast, adaptable, and easy to learn. It has the highest ratio of text to markup of any typesetting system, including TeX and Markdown. It is the single most overlooked and under appreciated project on the planet. Whether it's had "significant" development in the past 10 years depends on what that means. Current groff produces PDF format directly, without a Postscript intermediary. The PDF macros support links and TOC generation. I think that all took place in the last few years.
- claystu 11y ago
  What platform do you write on? Linux? Mac? I'm genuinely curious. I have been looking for substitutes to Latex ever since writing my dissertation in Latex and having to debug/tweak an already horrendous Latex .sty file. I basically decided that I would either write technical documents in Tex or not at all after that. For me, Latex is great, until it isn't, and then it's Jinga-on-a-unicycle frustration.
  - FraaJad 11y ago
    The problem with LaTeX is that you are given an already unstable jinga (ie., style file etc.,). You can always go back to the basics and use simple TeX for your documents if you think groff/troff is simpler. However, I'd encourage you to give ConteXt http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ a try because it is the spiritual successor to TeX (one tool for all the typesetting) instead of having to depend on "third party" stuff like LaTeX, most of which very few of us (outside the original sty author) understand.

coliveira 11y ago

Kernighan has always used troff, so it is not a surprise that he is still using it. He can do things with troff that most people would have a hard time to do with LaTeX. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that troff is better, in fact as you said it has not been updated for a long time. For someone starting now, it is so much easier to learn and be productive with LaTeX instead of troff.

jklowden 11y ago

I wrote to Kernighan a few years ago, when "D is for Digital" came out, to ask him, in effect, if troff had been made obsolete by TeX. At the time I had begun using it, and wondered if it was worth investing my time to learn. He answered that he still preferred to use groff, having tried alternatives. Since then I have used groff exclusively for writing documentation and papers. It never runs out of gas, and always produces attractive output. It offers a complete suite -- math, tables, pictures, graphs -- all in one package. It's fast, adaptable, and easy to learn. It has the highest ratio of text to markup of any typesetting system, including TeX and Markdown. It is the single most overlooked and under appreciated project on the planet. Whether it's had "significant" development in the past 10 years depends on what that means. Current groff produces PDF format directly, without a Postscript intermediary. The PDF macros support links and TOC generation. I think that all took place in the last few years.

claystu 11y ago
What platform do you write on? Linux? Mac? I'm genuinely curious. I have been looking for substitutes to Latex ever since writing my dissertation in Latex and having to debug/tweak an already horrendous Latex .sty file. I basically decided that I would either write technical documents in Tex or not at all after that. For me, Latex is great, until it isn't, and then it's Jinga-on-a-unicycle frustration.
- FraaJad 11y ago
  The problem with LaTeX is that you are given an already unstable jinga (ie., style file etc.,). You can always go back to the basics and use simple TeX for your documents if you think groff/troff is simpler. However, I'd encourage you to give ConteXt http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ http://wiki.contextgarden.net/ a try because it is the spiritual successor to TeX (one tool for all the typesetting) instead of having to depend on "third party" stuff like LaTeX, most of which very few of us (outside the original sty author) understand.