Re: Git snapshot tarballs, multiple-pass formatting, and pdfmom (was: groff 1.25.0.rc1 testing)

> G. Branden Robinson <[email protected]> wrote:
>=20
> I'd like to avoid doing what TeX does (or what its usual front-end
> does), and do what appears to be multi-pass formatting even when it's
> not necessary.  Or maybe it _doesn't_ apply multiple passes
> unnecessarily, but its ordinary operation is so garrulous that I
> struggle to tell the difference.

In the years around 2004-2010, I maintained a pretty large[1] firmware =
guide
in Groff. Standard procedure was a two-pass format: build the table of =
contents
during the first pass, along with all forward references, then the =
second pass
resolved all the page numbers. Rarely, maybe once or twice a year, I =
needed a
third pass when pagination interfered with cross-references. But even on =
a
blue Mac G3 (1999 model), typing =E2=80=9Cmake=E2=80=9D and walking to =
the bathroom gave me
a clean PDF before I returned.

I=E2=80=99m not saying there are no use cases where 2026-vintage =
hardware needs help
building groff, but I believe it=E2=80=99s true that (besides Deri=E2=80=99=
s eye-popping use case)
the vast majority of groff users aren=E2=80=99t going to notice an extra =
pass when it comes
to processor usage.

=E2=80=94 Larry

[1] =E2=80=9CPretty large=E2=80=9D =3D around 1000 pages across four =
docs. Later on, I consolidated
it into a single manual that ran 700-900 pages depending on build-time =
options.=