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Re: groff/-mandoc replacement (OT)



At Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:52:49 +0100, =?windows-1252?Q?Kristaps_D=9Eonsons?= 
<kristaps%kth.se@localhost> wrote:
Subject: Re: groff/-mandoc replacement (OT)
> 
> I don't claim that mdocml replaces groff or any troff in the
> general-purpose roff-y sense.  It's not a roff parser.  What I do claim
> is that mdocml allows one to analyse the content of an mdoc(7) document
> via a well-defined intermediate form -- not merely the style but the
> content, which is all that troff does and will always do.

Well, since mdoc(7) is simply a macro package on _top_ of troff, not
parsing all of troff means not truly handling mdoc(7) documents.  Period.

> I further claim that it can deprecate troff for the mdoc package, which,
> very arguably, is troff's predominant utility.

That's impossible in mdocml's apparent current form.

You still need pic, tbl, eqn, etc. to pre-process those documents first
anyway, in addition to parsing full troff -- or to also parse those
extensions to the troff language.  mdoc(7) documents may also contain
uses of any of those extensions, and they often do.

-- 
                                                Greg A. Woods
                                                Planix, Inc.

<woods%planix.com@localhost>       +1 416 489-5852        http://www.planix.com/

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