Re: [Groff] Eric Raymond on groff and TeX

[Peter Schaffter]

On Thu, May 03, 2012, Tadziu Hoffmann wrote:
> 
> > I think esr is emphasizing (!) that in a structural-markup
> > language the tags can have no typographic meaning whatsoever.  
> 
> Correct.  What Anton was considering unfair is the implication
> that troff only does presentational markup

Which is patently untrue.  Using mom macros and HTML as an example:

.HEAD "Foo        <h1>Foo</h1>
.PP               <p>
Lorem ipsum...    Lorem ipsum...
.SUBHEAD "Bar     <h2>Bar</h2>
.PP               <p>
Lorem ipsum...    Lorem ipsum...
.LIST             <ul>
.ITEM             <li>
Item one          Item one</li>
.ITEM             <li>
Item two          Item two</li>
.LIST off         </ul>
.SUBSUBHEAD "Baz" <h3>Baz</h3>
.PP               <p>
Lorem ipsum...    Lorem ipsum...

> I think the idea is to stop thinking of troff and TeX as
> presentation-markup languages.  They're more universal.

Indeed, and therein lies their usefulness: superb typographic
control when you need it, and clear structural markup when that's
what's called for.
 
-- 
Peter Schaffter

Author of The Binbrook Caucus
http://www.schaffter.ca