@clew I tried LaTeX ten years ago and never learned how to get satisfactory output despite buying and reading Leslie Lamport's book.

Granted, LaTeX has probably changed considerably over the last decade or so, but I was able to install groff on my laptop in 15 seconds. The macros look pretty straightforward if http://www.schaffter.ca/mom/momdoc/docprocessing.html#setup is any indication, so I hope to have a better experience.

Also, I figure using groff on OpenBSD will earn more hipster cred.

@ebel @starbreaker I keep hearing about asciidoc, and another LWML that Debian uses for docs. I should compare....

@dredmorbius @ebel You could, but I I have books typeset on Unix with troff, and I've always found them readable.

@starbreaker @ebel troff is quite readable.

It's not nearly so writeable.

@starbreaker @ebel I used it for seveal essays and papers at uni. I've forgotten virtually all of it.

I occasionally look to it for updating manpages, an tend to run screaming.

@dredmorbius @ebel I've reverse-engineered COBOL programs edited by a hundred different people. How much worse can this be?

@starbreaker Well, I won't argue with you on that one, but I'll note tha I'm no longer competing to fing the most painful and aggrevating computer environment.

What I like about Markdown is that it makes the easy stuff easy, and much of the slightly more complex still ain't bad.

@dredmorbius @starbreaker

I'm very happy, at this point, with combining Markdown, Pandoc and Weasyprint.

@Algot @dredmorbius I hadn't heard of WeasyPrint before. Thanks.

@dredmorbius Well, I can't take Catholic doctrine seriously, Dark Souls is too easy, and my wife would get jealous if I went to a dominatrix. If I want pain, it's gonna have to come from Unix.

@dredmorbius @starbreaker I'm not currently producing a book, but I love Markdown for clarity. Still, I generally prefer an editor where I can click a button or use an easy keyboard shortcut to insert the basic code for links or images.

I can definitely see using asciidoc/asciidoctor for the ebooks I have planned.

@donblanco @dredmorbius I might use Markdown or reStructuredText for EPUB and MOBI, but I want groff for making really nice PDFs.

@starbreaker @donblanco Not Tex?

Maybe there's a less crftty groff source format, but I've found it hostile..

@donblanco @starbreaker I've used text editors for so long, GUI just gets in the way.
Macros and scripts can add formatting, links, etc.

I somewhat regularly create Markdown versions of docs I've turned up.

@donblanco @starbreaker Example, Dugald Stewart's biography of Adam Smith:

PDF:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6Q6JFf-mAJPY0tfaXlQWUNwLWc/view?usp=drivesdk

Markdown:
http://pastebin.com/LdKXpHdR

Origin:
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/smith/dugald

@ebel I know about AsciiDoc, and I think I've tinkered with it, but I kinda like the idea of using tools descended from the tools the creators of Unix used back in the day.

I want to see if the old tools still work.

@starbreaker oh that's a good point! Now I wanna try it. Just cause.