Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 11:14:42 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Sean Kelly <kelly@plutotech.com> Cc: nik@FreeBSD.ORG, doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: TeX problems; Doc. Proj. needs you! Message-ID: <19981108111442.Y499@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <3644E3C4.D41B60C5@plutotech.com>; from Sean Kelly on Sat, Nov 07, 1998 at 05:20:20PM -0700 References: <19981107211415.05931@nothing-going-on.org> <19981108100712.V499@freebie.lemis.com> <3644E3C4.D41B60C5@plutotech.com>
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On Saturday, 7 November 1998 at 17:20:20 -0700, Sean Kelly wrote:
>> ... There's
>> something about stuff which has been formatted with TeX which shouts
>> "look at me, I've been formatted with TeX".
>
> Funny, I'd say the same thing about documents coming out of *roff.
Examples? I've been using *roff for a while now, and I still can't
recognize them. Of course, you can end up recognizing specific macro
sets, but that's not the same thing.
> But with either system, it's possible, with enough work, to create
> output that doesn't reveal its origins.
Agreed. But I've never seen anybody go to the trouble in TeX. To
quote "Porting UNIX Software":
More than anywhere else in porting, it is good for your state of
mind to steer clear of TeX internals. The assumptions on which the
syntax is based differ markedly from those of other programming
languages. For example, identifiers may not contain digits, and
spaces are required only when the meaning would otherwise be
ambiguous (to TeX, not to you), so the sequence fontsize300 is in
fact the identifier fontsize followed by the number 300. On the
other hand, it is almost impossible to find any good solid
information in the documentation, so you could spend hours trying to
solve a minor problem. I have been using TeX frequently for years,
and I still find it the most frustrating program I have ever
seen. [1]
[1] When I wrote this sentence, I wondered if I wasn't overstating
the case. Mike Loukides, the author of Programming with GNU
Software, reviewed the final draft and added a single word:
Amen.
> For example, many are surprised that the invoices I print for consulting
> work come out of plain TeX. For a sample, see:
>
> http://www-sdd.fsl.noaa.gov/~kelly/sampleInvoice.ps
I'm not. I used to do that too, but I changed to *roff quite some
time after changing everything else.
Greg
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