Re: groff performance and a critique of mandoc(1)'s PDF generation (was: Git snapshot tarballs, multiple-pass formatting, and pdfmom)

G. Branden Robinson <[email protected]> wrote:

> I agree that Markdown has its place in a documentary ecosystem.  The
> problem, as is often the case, is less the technology itself, than the
> blinkered subculture of "insanely great" that grows up around it.

Like the mandoc fanbois you mentioned? :D

> We know that Markdown wasn't the be-all, end-all of documentation
> formats because it promptly sprouted divergent implementations to solve
> problems that Markdown itself could not.

Sort of like all the localized extensions to -ms — but that’s not the point.
Pick the version that works for you, ignore the rest.


>> I need to look into Pikchr, to see if it’s possible to create diagrams
>> that work for both it and pic(1). That could be a fun digression, now
>> that the kids are all in school and I won’t be on the hook to watch
>> them all day.
> 
> I'm curious to hear more about this!

I need to add this to my list. Turns out the kids being in school doesn’t
automatically give me hours of free time… I’m sure everyone knows how
that works.

> I know of exactly one real-world application where mandoc(1)'s speed
> makes a practical difference.
> 
> The NixOS project generates a 9.8-megabyte man page.  Everybody brings
> it up all the time and, since the document is unreadable at that length,
> instantly starts a full-text search, likely with less(1)'s `/` command.
> 
> https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/514498

Holy guacamole! What the absolute living **** is the motivation behind THAT?
And here I was thinking the bash(1) manpage was way too huge. Maybe I should
offer my services to slay that beast and chop it into reasonable pieces?

I mean, come on. A manpage that runs more than 10 pages (formatted in
11-point type in PDF or printed) is too big. Even the perl(1) folks understood
that, and produced a collection of manpages that addressed a specific aspect,
while they collected them into a comprehensive manual.

Nucking futs.

— Larry