Re: [Groff] groff as a backend

[Clarke Echols]

Meg McRoberts wrote:
>      But my heart is still with groff -- I would like nothing
> better than to be able to use it for everything!
> 
> meg

I tell troff types sometimes that you don't know troff until
you use it to create master artwork for printed circuit cards.
:-)

Been there, done that.  Painful, but it works!  All you need
is a simple line-drawing macro package that can also draw
circles and squares.  The PC board landed in a machine that
was ranked by Motor magazine by one of the top 20 new
automotive service tools that year.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

It is unfortunate that the world seems to run on Word and
other insane/inane "word processors" when one can do so much
more so much more efficiently and effectively with "vi" (yes,
I wrote the book on that too at HP) :-)  Running vi non-interactively
inside a shell script (redirect standard input from a file whose
last line is "ZZ" or ":wq") and using sed inside of vi lets you
do some really insanely powerful stuff.  I can only imagine
running awk inside of vi, but I haven't learned it yet...

The thing I like about "unfriendly" command-line-oriented
editors and user shells is that they get the "friendly
user interface out of your face so you can get some work
done.  And it pays off too.  When HP transferred the HP-UX
Reference (all troff) from me to another site at HP, they
replaced me with 10 full-time engineers.  When I left the company
in 1999, they replaced me with three individuals.  Corporate
bean counters don't know how to put a dollar value on
competence, then wonder why they have turn-over.  If you
know how to use the system capabilities, you can get done in
minutes or a few hours what takes others days or weeks to do.
But they aren't willing to invest in training and accumulated
competence.  How are they to know when HR and accounting
departments know only Word and have no clue about real
document production.

So call me a vi/sed/troff/groff bigot. :-)  Now I'll get off
of my soap box...

Clarke