On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 12:08:21PM -0700, Bakul Shah wrote:
>
> Most TeX users are actually latex users, not raw TeX so the
> TeXbook is not terribly useful. But there are good books on
> latex and there is a wealth of material online (& many
> packages that work with latex). With TeXworks and TeXshop on
> the Mac writing latex docs has become more pleasant.
>
> Still, it is much easier to learn to use troff (speaking as a
> user; never tried writing a macro package for it). A lot of
> things "just work".
I'm not an integrist, and as long as someone is comfortable with troff,
I don't see why he should switch to TeX. The converse is true.
But most of the "difficulties" with TeX come precisely because this is
not "plain" TeX: plain TeX (i.e. the macros from D.E. Knuth) just work
too. But TeX is hidden---see the comments I received at first: "why do
you want to make a TeX package? People only use LaTeX..."
And I think that I have the right to say that if some people had really
grasped TeX and al., they would never have done the mess the
distributions of the system are now.
--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
