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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!alberta!sask!skatter!kuo
From: kuo@skatter.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Why troff?
Message-ID: <273@skatter.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Jan-87 18:41:23 EST
Article-I.D.: skatter.273
Posted: Mon Jan 26 18:41:23 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Jan-87 05:23:12 EST
References: <362@linus.UUCP> <1244@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>
Distribution: comp.text
Organization: Accelerator Lab, Saskatoon, Sask.
Lines: 38
Keywords: TeX, troff
Summary: but ...but....but.....

In article <1244@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>, faustus@ucbcad.berkeley.edu (Wayne A. Christopher) writes:
> 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?)

I agree that TeX's table-making is a little complicated, but I think LaTeX
may offer some solutions (I have just got the LaTeX book and have not really
look into it yet!). However, with the table-making in TeX, I think one has
more options to play with.


> Other than that,
> it's just inertia...  Also, what sort of self-respecting UNIX hack would
> use a text formatter written in Pascal?  :-)
> 

But... but... there is now a version of TeX in C (maybe more than one
version; TeX in Common C and the Unix version of TeX is also in C [standard
C?])....


I learned TeX first on a VMS machine then moved (not by choice) to a Unix
machine having no TeX, but troff. I still like TeX over troff. Even the
macro files in TeX is more readable than troff's - to me anyways (:-)

... Peter/

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Peter Kuo                    Bitnet (VMS address)    : KUO@SASK
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