Re: [groff] groff as the basis for comprehensive documentation?

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi Ingo,

> I work on mdoc(7) manual pages a lot, and i almost never look at any
> kind of output to see whether the final formatting comes out in the
> desired visual form.  While writing, i exclusively think about the
> logical structure of the text and the semantic function of each word
> and symbol.  (I do periodically check the rendered console output,
> though - but only because finding typos is easier in the rendered form
> than in the source code.)  I certainly never look at HTML or
> PDF/PostScript output to see whether it comes out right.  I just
> *know* it will - or if it won't then that's a bug in the formatter
> which i have to fix.

Don't you ever forget to `\&' after a `.' that's not the end of
sentence, for example, and not notice because it fortunately falls where
it doesn't matter on the TTY but stands out when viewed in a
higher-resolution format?  I find looking at the PostScript/PDF valuable
precisely because it's a different rendering and thus shows problems
hidden by the rendering used when writing.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy