On Mon, Aug 20, 2018, Holger Herrlich wrote: > First lets assume that here is a diametral contradistinction between > plain groff and a macro package like mom in terms of user interface. > The first provides you all the controls to type set. The latter hides > that controls as much as possible, claiming the writers perspective.
Don't agree. Groff provides you with controls to set type AND to build tools for setting type, i.e. macros. As I pointed out to Yves Cloutier, the use of macros isn't optional. Page transitions, for example, aren't possible without them. Both the controls (requests) and the tools (macros) are part of the groff "experience," whether you write the macros yourself or not. A macro package does not hide the controls any more than writing macros yourself does. A macro package aggregates the requests needed to perform typesetting functions for convenience, not opacity. Furthermore, an examination of the classical macro sets reveals the target user is the person typesetting the document, not the writer. That two roles are often blended doesn't alter the fact that "the writer" produces content, which "the typesetter" formats. A macro set does not claim "writer's perspective," it claims "typesetter's perspective." > Here is a reason to do so, because mixing up text and groff requests > will disturb reading/writing. Document writing using markup will always > suffer this problem. So if you wanna write, you will end up with a > macro set. No. Document writing using markup will always result in text interspersed with formatting commands, whether groff requests, LaTex macros, or html tags. You are correct that this is considered by some to be a problem. The alternative, WYSIWYG, is also problematic, for different reasons, hence the debate over which approach to formatting documents is superior. > Why not an existing one? > > For me, I want to use tools that preserve creativity. But a framework > desires to make things easy. (As a rule of thumb: Always avoid people > claiming that.) But the kindergarten teacher's "making things easy" is > different to providing a professional tool that do exactly that it > claims to do--therefore is "easy to use". I suspect you haven't examined mom thoroughly. In addition to semantically rich markup tags, it provides professional typesetting tools that do exactly what they claim to do, most of them providing greater flexibility than can be had with requests alone, and some providing functions that weren't even thought of in the original troff. String tabs, for example; tabs whose length is established from text strings and thus scale when the point size is changed. Another example is carded (or "feathered") leading. It meets both your requirements for easy: it does exactly what it claims to do--adjusts leading to fill the page to the bottom margin--and is invoked simply by entering .DOC_LEAD_ADJUST. In addition to professional typesetting tools, all of mom's markup tags have an associated suite of "control macros" that allow you to set and change every applicable type parameter: family, font, size, colour, leading, spacing, indent, quad, fill, and vertical placement. In other words, mom expands creative options rather than limiting them. That's the whole point. > The framework takes away flexibility. No. A *poorly implemented* framework takes away flexibility. A well implemented one adds to it. > So to create business cards I had to do it myself from the > scratch. Mom provides a sufficiently flexible framework that you could have created the business cards from scratch using only mom macros and not one single low-level groff request. I know, I've done it. Eight-up with logos, crops, and register marks. > OKAY, that's the idea. A framework doesn't provide smaller > entities (the UNIX thing) to be more creative (not only > graphically). I want to insist that you're talking about *inadequate* frameworks, about which all your comments are true, not well-designed ones. A well-designed framework is one that supports you when you want to wander down the creative path. -- Peter Schaffter http://www.schaffter.ca
