Post #2686134

2026-05-09 07:55 UTC

@ed1conf@bsd.network @joXn@wandering.shop @benfry@information.garden @mjtsai@mastodon.social Strongly disagree! And I worked as a tech author maintaing a UNIX VAR's docset using *roff and vi(1) in the early 90s. *roff was an absolute pain. (And I never got my head around LaTeX.)

Replies (2)

@Colman@mastodon.ie 2026-05-09 07:57

@cstross@wandering.shop @ed1conf@bsd.network @joXn@wandering.shop @benfry@information.garden @mjtsai@mastodon.social I loved the *roffs: great for script outputs that needed formatting. LaTeX wasn’t a choice: degree in mathematics.

Open ##2686135
@PeterSommerlad@mastodon.social 2026-05-09 08:49

@cstross@wandering.shop @ed1conf@bsd.network @joXn@wandering.shop @benfry@information.garden @mjtsai@mastodon.social where i worked as a unix trainer in the 1980s all slide sets where done in nroff and drawn on a HP multi-color plotter. so i had my share of *roff and vi (which I also taught), today I create my material in markdown and render with pandoc to a variety of target formats (HTML, Latex-PDF, docx). the ability to have your own filters gives me the 1980s vibes like with *roff.

Open ##2686136