Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!im4u!ut-sally!utah-cs!utah-gr!stride!tahoe!pjg From: pjg@tahoe.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.text Subject: Re: Why troff? Message-ID: <436@tahoe.UUCP> Date: Mon, 26-Jan-87 03:21:09 EST Article-I.D.: tahoe.436 Posted: Mon Jan 26 03:21:09 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 28-Jan-87 23:39:19 EST References: <362@linus.UUCP> Reply-To: pjg@tahoe.UUCP (Paul Graham) Distribution: comp.text Organization: University of Nevada Reno Lines: 50 Keywords: TeX, troff Summary: How do you get rid of cut marks! In article <362@linus.UUCP> sdo@linus.UUCP (Sean David O'Neil) writes: >From the number >of articles about troff posted in this newsgroup there clearly exists a >large number of people who use troff and support it. Notice how many are questions about how to do something. (Stop. I know what you're going to say.) >Is it just inertia? To be brief, *almost* yes. >Does anyone with an overview of both troff and TeX have an answer? >There must be good reasons to use it - it's just that I'm unaware of any. me too. ;-) As someone who has an overview of both TeX, troff and some traditional phototypesetting I'd like to stick in my two cents worth. troff is dominant in the UNIX world because it comes with the package (where the package is something other than the systems we see coming unbundled from folks like Tandy and AT&T). Since it is a standard product at so many sites that are producing documents, another reason is (although I'm inclined to hook it on to the first) these documents come in some flavor of troff. And it is true that TeX does have some difficulty producing output on limited resolution devices (i.e. non-graphic crt terminals). This is more important to some people than others though. Further expansion on this theme is available via mail. As well as hossannahs of praise for TeX/LaTeX/AMSTeX. <> Now it is *not* my considered opinion that troff will let any mere mortal perform any task better than TeX. (Brian Reid has indicated that troff is ultimately more powerful than TeX (or Scribe) but I doubt very much that anyone of us has noticed this.) It is also not my opinion that the typical users of a phototypesetter will find troff any easier to use than TeX. And I doubt that very many of them that would consider TeX an academic oddity would consider troff any the less one. (These people think in a fundamentally different way is what I really believe). I think there you have it. Some marginal, but real reasons. Seems rather analogous to most Pascal usage to me. Hmmm, personally I think I'd rather have to sleep with a bear than support a community of troff users. -- Thanks for your time. Paul Graham seismo!unrvax!pjg