Re: [Groff] Eric Raymond on groff and TeX

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Ted,

> On that basis, I think (though I may have misunderstood the
> distinction Eric Raymond want to make between presentation-markup and
> structural-markup) that it comes to much the same thing!

The valid distinction seems to be that DocBook gives a tree structure to
the mark-up which troff does not.  A tree structure could be inferred
from knowledge of the macros meaning for a particular macro set but the
mark-up itself doesn't create one.  (See vi's `:set paragraphs?'.)

Having a tree structure allows one to do wholesale modifications, e.g.
move a branch AKA paragraph.

That said, I much prefer troff's quiet mark-up than the unworkable noise
of DocBook.

Cheers, Ralph.