[looping in groff list]
Hi Larry and Adam,
On May 27, 2025, at 6:55 PM, Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
The [troff macros] you want are [those used to compose] the Stevens
books. That guy made troff sing, he walked me through his process
years (decades?) ago. He really knew troff and those books have
held up to this day.
No idea if the source is anywhere, but if it is, that should be
archived because that is some great work.
I too am a fan of W. Richard Stevens's work. I am disappointed that he
passed long before I became involved in groff development and therefore
had an excuse to frequently engage with him--I am certain I would have
learned much about *roff and other things.
At 2025-05-28T16:17:04-0700, Adam Koszek wrote:
Multiple authors attributed good looks of their books to his macros. I
wonder if anyone has a backup...
Alternatively or additionally, if someone has a thorough English-
language description of those macros at the level of detail of a
specification, then I can see them becoming part of the GNU roff
distribution, either as a "contributed" component or as part of the
"official" system, depending on who did the work and what copyright they
were comfortable applying to it.[1]
I emphasize that, for groff, "contrib" is not a wastebasket directory on
a website; everything in the "contrib" directory of groff's Git
repository gets built and shipped, and distributors generally provide
the materials therein. Some of it gets automated testing and/or has
seen recent bug fixes and development too, as with the groff version of
the mm macros, and Peter Schaffter's popular (and sophisticated) "mom"
package.
Regards,
Branden
[1] groff's "LICENSES" file attempts to illuminate these matters.