Re: [Groff] condition: OR of two string comparisons

[James K. Lowden]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2014 17:31:44 +0100
Tadziu Hoffmann <address@hidden> wrote:

> The syntax of expressions and conditionals isn't what's keeping new
> users from using groff. As Peter has already pointed out, the entire
> working model of roff presents a much greater mental hurdle than the
> one given by an idiosyncratic expression syntax.  

If I could add to that, this is one user for whom expression syntax
represents no hurdle at all because as far as I know I've barely used
it. One can write fairly complex documents, leaning on ms, tbl, pic,
and eqn without ever writing a macro.  

The tide of new users is held to a trickle surely by the rebarbative
syntax.  IMO anyone willing to use find(1) or vi should cotton to groff
if they give it half a chance.  But I've never met anyone who'd
consider it for anything except man pages. 

> I use groff because it's a programmable text formatter that
> despite its peculiarities is based on a relatively simple
> conceptual model that I can understand and that I can usually
> coax into doing what I want.  

That would be me, too.  :-)

--jkl