At 2021-08-05T00:04:46+1000, John Gardner wrote: > > But the mdoc(7) and man(7) languages can also be regarded as > > languages with a grammar > > I wish people would stop referring to these as "languages". They're > macro packages, plain and simple: their "syntax" is that of the > language they're written in, Roff. How mandoc(1) implements and parses > them is immaterial, especially since mandoc's job isn't to be an > implementation of Troff, but to be a formatter for these two very > specialised macro sets, using a cherry-picked subset of language > features. > > It's difficult to get newcomers interested in Troff when they're > frequently being told that the program's input language isn't one, but > several... only to find out much later on how they really work, and > that the system is less complex than they initially believed.
I don't think Ingo was addressing novices. From a mathematical or computer science perspective, it is legitimate to regard mdoc and man(7) as languages. Regards, Branden
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