groff & NetBSD & relevance (was Re: Re: Re: Request to reconsider removal of groff from base system)

[David Young <dyoung%pobox.com@localhost>]

On Tue, Apr 07, 2015 at 11:27:02AM +0000, Ron Swiernik wrote:
> Again this is an enhancement? Can mandoc handle tbl and pic input?
> 
> UNIX has had the *roff tool suite for a long time. A text formatter is how they
> got support from management to continue work on UNIX. I doubt we would be
> talking about UNIX today if it wasn't for the suite.

There can be no denying that the MS office suite has serious usability
problems (not to mention problems with usefulness, relevance, and
resilience), but I don't think a batch-oriented system using dot
commands is any kind of improvement.

I don't think that arguments whether one old technology (MS Office is,
by now, rather long in the tooth) is an improvement or not over an older
technology (just how old is *roff?) really advance the project.

Document preparation is important.  Deleting the only or best document
preparation system in NetBSD (supposing that is even what's going on)
is pretty lame, but it seems to me that neither *roff nor an MS Office
knock-off will buy UNIX much relevance in 2015.  What's next?

Dave

-- 
David Young
dyoung%pobox.com@localhost    Urbana, IL    (217) 721-9981