Re: [Groff] Lack of professionalism ....

[Larry Kollar]

> Tadziu Hoffmann <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> [...] that this is yet another instance of ungainly galloping
>> gnus departing from Unix's original path of simplicity and
>> transparency.
> 
> Not really.  Unix nroff had an option to create a "compacted"
> version of a macro package, which was used because the compacted
> file had a significantly reduced loading time compared to the
> original, uncompacted file.

Not to mention “catman,” that stored pre-formatted manpages
to avoid the overhead of running nroff altogether!

I have to admit, I got a chuckle when reading CSTR97 (ditroff)
lately, and got to the part where Brian Kernighan talked about
troff’s “voracious appetite for computer resources (especially
when used with macro packages and preprocessors like EQN
and TBL).” Of course, that was 1982, when CPUs were
measured in 10s of MHz, RAM in 100s of KB, and hard drives
in 10s of MB. These days, I can start groff on a seven year old
PowerBook, go get a cup of coffee, and the 700-page PDF is
waiting for me when I get back.

— Larry