> > Eh? That's precisely what it is. It covers matters that are (more or > less) common to all roff implementations. Have you looked at it?
Sorry, my wires got crossed. I completely misread this discussion… I'll see myself out. On Sun, 30 Jul 2023 at 09:42, G. Branden Robinson < g.branden.robin...@gmail.com> wrote: > At 2023-07-30T09:35:28+1000, John Gardner wrote: > [I wrote:] > > > I wonder why mandoc didn't just call its roff(7) page mandoc(7), given > > > that it parallels groff(7) more than anything else. > > > > Strictly speaking, Groff is at fault here; the manual page dedicated > > to the Roff language proper should have been named as such, > > Eh? That's precisely what it is. It covers matters that are (more or > less) common to all roff implementations. Have you looked at it? > > roff(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual roff(7) > > Name > roff - concepts and history of roff typesetting > > Description > The term roff denotes a family of document formatting systems known > by names like troff, nroff, and ditroff. A roff system consists of > an interpreter for an extensible text formatting language and a set > of programs for preparing output for various devices and file > formats. Unix‐like operating systems often distribute a roff > system. The manual pages on Unix systems (“man pages”) and > bestselling books on software engineering, including Brian Kernighan > and Dennis Ritchie’s The C Programming Language and W. Richard > Stevens’s Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment have been > written using roff systems. GNU roff—groff—is arguably the most > widespread roff implementation. > > Below we present typographical concepts that form the background of > all roff implementations, narrate the development history of some > roff systems, detail the command pipeline managed by groff(1), > survey the formatting language, suggest tips for editing roff input, > and recommend further reading materials. > > [...800+ more lines of text follow...] > > > whereas groff(1) pertains to an executable. > > Yes. And groff(7) describes the language interpreted by GNU troff(1). > > groff_diff(1) covers the differences from CSTR #54. > > > So, mandoc's naming is correct nomenclature, IMHO. > > If you want to argue that only an equivalent to CSTR #54 deserves the > roff(7) page, then mandoc(1) doesn't get that any more right than we do. > And it likely won't, because so many roff language features are beyond > the scope of that project's mission. > > Regards, > Branden >
