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From: ken@rochester.ARPA (SKY)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Why troff?
Message-ID: <24106@rochester.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 23-Jan-87 11:12:38 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.24106
Posted: Fri Jan 23 11:12:38 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Jan-87 00:14:02 EST
References: <362@linus.UUCP> <1244@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: ken@rochester.UUCP (SKY)
Distribution: comp.text
Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY
Lines: 18
Keywords: TeX, troff

|The one thing I've heard that troff is better than TeX with is tables -- 
|I've used tbl a lot and it seems to work fine, but others who have used
|TeX's table-making facilities complain that they are not very convenient.
|(Are there any good macro packages for tables in TeX?) Other than that,
|it's just inertia...  Also, what sort of self-respecting UNIX hack would
|use a text formatter written in Pascal?  :-)
|
|	Wayne

The table mode of LaTeX is as good as tbl. Now that TeX has stabilized
you will see implementations in other languages, like Common TeX in C.
Notwithstanding its Pascal implementation, I typically find TeX processes
my text faster than troff.

On the other hand, some documents need troff, like Unix man pages.
And there is nothing like pic in the TeX world yet.

	Ken