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Subject:Re: Recommended Applications - Interleaf From:sanders_j -at- TBOSCH -dot- DNET -dot- GE -dot- COM Date:Wed, 8 Sep 1993 13:33:51 EDT
Hi All,
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Don't say that evil word. "troff"
The very first job I had doing t-comm involved using troff on a UNIX machine,
and eventually I ended up using vi because I couldn't stand the regular
editor. And that involved teaching myself vi in the first place.
For those of you who don't know what .troff is: imagine, if you will, all
your documents are in ASCII. This is there normal state. In between lines,
at the top of documents, and around special words there are strange codes
which have little obvious meaning. Until you print the document, of course,
when they turn into formats. Yes, all our documents were hand-coded. When
you wanted to see what it really looked like, you printed it. And if you
forgot a closing code, you ended up with 1000 pages in 30 point type.
(Okay, maybe I exagerrate. A little.)
The only nice thing was how nicely it did tables.
Believe me, when that company moved to FrameMaker, it was like an oasis
after 2500 miles of Vulcanized desert. And I was only there two years
when they made the switch.
