Re: PSD, SMM and USD manuals [was: Re: Shell tutorial added]

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:41:03 +0300
    From:        markucz%gmail.com@localhost
    Message-ID:  <20100825134103.432d5458@localhost>

  | Just as FYI, groff consistently rejects valid *roff and/or produces junk.

Believe me, I understand.  What they've done to *roff is truly appalling.
(I guess some people think it is progress, to me, it is just broken).

  | Heirloom troff doesn't complain at all *and* gets the job done.

Sorry, never heard of that one, what is it?  What's it's availability
and licensing?   That is, is that something that might be better for NetBSD
than groff, or is it something commercial and totally irrelevant?

  | If groff compatibility is a must

As long as groff is the in-tree formatter, that's most likely what we
need to have work.

  | and someone knows the right incantations to please groff,

I have converted a bunch of my own stuff from real troff (either the
original, or ditroff) to groff in the past, so maybe I can help with
that, but I am certainly no groff expert (I'm more likely to do things
in original troff style, and just force groff to handle it, than do it
the blessed groff "improved" way).

  | "Troff User's Manual" in particular is impossible for groff to handle.

Since that is one of the ones I personally miss most (I'm finding I
need to rely on old printed copies when I need *roff assistance) I
might try starting with that one...    I'm not surprised it is going to
be one of the most testing cases though, to fully describe *roff, it is
likely to be using just about everything, including some of the more
esoteric features.

However, no-one should defer any work because you think you'd be duplicating
what I say I might do .. time is limited, and I'm afraid NetBSD stuff,
while enjoyable, is just filler for when I get too bored with real work
to continue...   It is by no means impossible that it will never happen
if left to me (I have a couple of other projects that are more or less
stalled for the same reason.)

kre