Re: [Groff] Eric Raymond on groff and TeX

[James K. Lowden]

On Wed, 09 May 2012 08:54:30 +0200 (CEST)
Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> wrote:

> > The problem is fundamental - a good conversion needs structural
> > analysis as good as doclifter's, which is *hard*.
> 
> Yes.  However, grohtml would be able to do different things, in a
> different way, and with proper markup the results could be excellent
> also.  Sigh.

It's interesting you say that, Werner, because I think grohtml is
broken by design, for the simple reason that HTML in no way resembles a
printer.  Because troff affords the user finer control --
dot-addressable control -- over the (intended) output, any conversion
to HTML is subject to gross loss of fidelity.  Aren't the advantages of
ditroff completely lost?  

If the browser offered something more printer-like, then we'd have
something more useful to troff.  AFAIK that doesn't exist.  

(Convert xdvi into a Firefox plugin.  Just a small matter of
programming.)  

--jkl