Friday, January 14, 2005

TeX vs Troff

I have been using TeX for some time now, I used to use troff earlier. Books like those from Tanenbaum and Richard Stevens still use troff where as authors like Ullman have migrated to TeX/LaTeX. The troff authors mention that real authots still use troff. I am confused now. Troff is simple to use, but TeX is very powerful and fits well into the pdf, especially with context. I find it difficult to draw pictures using metapost, where as pic is quite simple.

If you guys have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to post them

2 comments:

Hongzheng said...

I'm also a TeX user. But I have just begun to learn Troff instead. Basically, it seems that troff is quite easier to use than TeX in some sense ... In fact, I usually loose myself in details with TeX (I don't like latex). TeX might be too scientific. BTW, groff can use eps figures. So there are so many options to draw graphs used by troff.

Balbir said...

I like both TeX and LaTeX, but I am stuck with illustrations. picTeX, pstricks, metapost just don't cut it for me at the moment.

I find TeX easier than troff, troff has too many "." commands, which can get annoying.

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