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I agree that might be a good choice for a more modern alternative, but it still doesn't solve the problem of existing manpages. You could cleverly upconvert on
by immita 12y ago
I agree that might be a good choice for a more modern alternative, but it still doesn't solve the problem of existing manpages. You could cleverly upconvert on the fly of course, but that's basically the same thing as keeping groff around, except with the added friction of informing everyone that they should be using Markdown now, with new tooling and conventions. Don't underestimate the marketing costs of successfully convincing the diverse Linux ecosystems they should jump onboard.
I only see this working if some big entity slams the gavel and decrees this as the new manpage standard, but I also don't see any such entity having much incentive to do so.
- fortytw2 12y agoWell, for one time only, you can convert all (make a little converter) existing groff to markdown and then stop supporting groff at all.
- vertex-four 12y agoThis works fine if you're working on a cathedral (one of the BSDs or UNIXes, for example), not so much if you're trying to work with the bazaar that is the Linux software ecosystem. What's your plan? Submit a patch for every piece of software written in the past 15 years?
- tomjen3 12y agoBut existing pages would be served with the already existing groff, right? Software doesn't rot, so the existing software will continue to work in the future.
- pfortuny 12y agoSoftware doesn't rot but libc changes...