3 ms·

There’s lex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software)) and parser generators such as yacc (https://en.wikipedia

There’s lex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_(software)) and parser generators such as yacc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacc). And what do you find weird in troff? I see it as an early markdown, or rather, markdown as yet another take on runoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPSET_and_RUNOFF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPSET_and_RUNOFF). Markdown is a bit more implicit and (unless you ‘escape’ out of it using html) has fewer features, but I don’t see it as that different.

bediger4000 5y ago
I'm aware of the Chomsky hierarchy. You can express more in a language with a grammar than one described by regular expressions. What's weird in troff: macros aren't particularly easy. Also the necessity of mixing "semantic" macros (.PP or whatever for "here's a paragraph") with fine-grained typesetting directives. There's also some property of .troff that although the language is enough to write old school file viruses (here's something about a TeX virus: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/73506-checkoway.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/73506-che..., can't find the troff virus citation), I don't think anyone has ever been able to write a troff self-replicating program. It appears you can't write a macro that puts a '.' at the beginning of the line or something like that. I'm also aware that Stevens typeset all of this books with troff. It's very capable and unlike some other word processing systems, you can keep troff files in version control systems meaningfully.
- Someone 5y ago
  > can't find the troff virus citation Reading http://www.di-srv.unisa.it/~ads/corso-security/www/HTML/VIRUS/node45.html http://www.di-srv.unisa.it/~ads/corso-security/www/HTML/VIRU... using my very rudimentary understanding of Italian, I think that would be P. Beyls, “Is Unix resistant to computer viruses?” Proceedings of the European UNIX systems UserGroup, pp 229-238, Münich, Germany, April 23-27 1990 I can’t find that online. Amazon knows of the 1988 and 1989 proceedings, but not of those for 1990, and neither of those is available (https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AEuropean+UNIX+Systems+User+Group&s=relevancerank&text=European+UNIX+Systems+User+Group&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1 https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AEuropean+UNI...)

bediger4000 5y ago

I'm aware of the Chomsky hierarchy. You can express more in a language with a grammar than one described by regular expressions. What's weird in troff: macros aren't particularly easy. Also the necessity of mixing "semantic" macros (.PP or whatever for "here's a paragraph") with fine-grained typesetting directives. There's also some property of .troff that although the language is enough to write old school file viruses (here's something about a TeX virus: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/73506-checkoway.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/articles/73506-che..., can't find the troff virus citation), I don't think anyone has ever been able to write a troff self-replicating program. It appears you can't write a macro that puts a '.' at the beginning of the line or something like that. I'm also aware that Stevens typeset all of this books with troff. It's very capable and unlike some other word processing systems, you can keep troff files in version control systems meaningfully.

Someone 5y ago
> can't find the troff virus citation Reading http://www.di-srv.unisa.it/~ads/corso-security/www/HTML/VIRUS/node45.html http://www.di-srv.unisa.it/~ads/corso-security/www/HTML/VIRU... using my very rudimentary understanding of Italian, I think that would be P. Beyls, “Is Unix resistant to computer viruses?” Proceedings of the European UNIX systems UserGroup, pp 229-238, Münich, Germany, April 23-27 1990 I can’t find that online. Amazon knows of the 1988 and 1989 proceedings, but not of those for 1990, and neither of those is available (https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AEuropean+UNIX+Systems+User+Group&s=relevancerank&text=European+UNIX+Systems+User+Group&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1 https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AEuropean+UNI...)