3 ms·

Neatroff – a new implementation of the Troff typesetting system (2017) [pdf]

49 points by smartmic 3y ago

bediger4000 3y ago
Until 2017, I kept my resume in troff (well, groff, really). After searching a bit, I finally re-did it in LaTex. So I have to ask why? Going up a level to http://litcave.rudi.ir/ http://litcave.rudi.ir/, it's for the author's own personal needs, but what needs could possibly motive what we see there? I'm astounded.
- sctb 3y ago
  Needs can go pretty high! I'm seeing this at the level of aesthetic and self-actualization.
  - whartung 3y ago
    My curiosity is piqued by the mention on the web page: I no longer use X11. And then proceeds to present his own framebuffer and rendering applications. I presume in order to show the PDFs and such that his processor creates. I'm just curious about his operating environment and workflow that led to this, and, perhaps, what he is doing today.
- radiator 3y ago
  I used to keep my resume in LaTeX until around that time, but I keep it in neatroff, without any macro sets, since then. In LaTeX, because of the macros and packages, I did not have full control of everything. My candidates were switching to troff or pure TeX. One advantage is, the troff tutorial (Brian Kerningham 1978), Nroff/Troff User's Manual and Neatroff user manual are not more than 80 pages in total. Another, neatroff easily uses any OTF/TTF font you like.
- chaxor 3y ago
  If you're looking for something that fixes many of the problems of latex (and has gained quite a lot of traction), you could use Typst. It has a far nicer syntax and is quite a lot more capable.
  - jesusofnazarath 3y ago
    [dead]
  - bediger4000 3y ago
    Can't tell if it's open source or not. My experience with closed source text formatters (Frame, Word of course, something else that doesn't come to mind) is that either (A) the proprietary company changes format rendering all your valuable documents unusable or (B) licensing fees go up, you decide not to pay those pirates the ransom and all your valuable documents are rendered unusable. Open source code for text formatters. It's the only option for long-lived documents.
    - chaxor 3y ago
      It's open source. Everything about it is open source except for a little web app thing (which is a really nice one, but you don't have to use it). I am using Typst to write my dissertation along with git and it's great. They have several pieces to the project at https://github.com/typst https://github.com/typst . The comemo package actually seems quite useful for everyone that writes Rust, regardless of if it's related to Typst or typesetting at all. Though, I don't write much Rust, so take that with a bag of salt.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ori_b 3y ago
We were looking at moving 9front's implementation of troff to neatroff at one point. It may still happen, but there are a lot of small differences between the current troff, some of the scripts and tools in the current document processing pipeline, and neatroff that need reconciling.

49 points by smartmic 3y ago

Until 2017, I kept my resume in troff (well, groff, really). After searching a bit, I finally re-did it in LaTex. So I have to ask why? Going up a level to http://litcave.rudi.ir/ http://litcave.rudi.ir/, it's for the author's own personal needs, but what needs could possibly motive what we see there? I'm astounded.

sctb 3y ago
Needs can go pretty high! I'm seeing this at the level of aesthetic and self-actualization.
- whartung 3y ago
  My curiosity is piqued by the mention on the web page: I no longer use X11. And then proceeds to present his own framebuffer and rendering applications. I presume in order to show the PDFs and such that his processor creates. I'm just curious about his operating environment and workflow that led to this, and, perhaps, what he is doing today.
radiator 3y ago
I used to keep my resume in LaTeX until around that time, but I keep it in neatroff, without any macro sets, since then. In LaTeX, because of the macros and packages, I did not have full control of everything. My candidates were switching to troff or pure TeX. One advantage is, the troff tutorial (Brian Kerningham 1978), Nroff/Troff User's Manual and Neatroff user manual are not more than 80 pages in total. Another, neatroff easily uses any OTF/TTF font you like.
chaxor 3y ago
If you're looking for something that fixes many of the problems of latex (and has gained quite a lot of traction), you could use Typst. It has a far nicer syntax and is quite a lot more capable.
- jesusofnazarath 3y ago
  [dead]
- bediger4000 3y ago
  Can't tell if it's open source or not. My experience with closed source text formatters (Frame, Word of course, something else that doesn't come to mind) is that either (A) the proprietary company changes format rendering all your valuable documents unusable or (B) licensing fees go up, you decide not to pay those pirates the ransom and all your valuable documents are rendered unusable. Open source code for text formatters. It's the only option for long-lived documents.
  - chaxor 3y ago
    It's open source. Everything about it is open source except for a little web app thing (which is a really nice one, but you don't have to use it). I am using Typst to write my dissertation along with git and it's great. They have several pieces to the project at https://github.com/typst https://github.com/typst . The comemo package actually seems quite useful for everyone that writes Rust, regardless of if it's related to Typst or typesetting at all. Though, I don't write much Rust, so take that with a bag of salt.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

ori_b 3y ago

We were looking at moving 9front's implementation of troff to neatroff at one point. It may still happen, but there are a lot of small differences between the current troff, some of the scripts and tools in the current document processing pipeline, and neatroff that need reconciling.