Doug McIlroy <d...@cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
> I've been writing the ugly \s360 since ancient times. Groff still thinks
> this means a 36-point 0. But man 7 groff says it means a 3-point 60:
>
> \s±N Set/increase/decrease the point size to/by N scaled points; N is
> a one-digit number in the range 1 to 9. Same as ps request.
>
> By convention ± is optional. Groff does as the man page says when
> a sign is present, but does as Joe Ossanna did otherwise.
>
> I would happily endure the breaking of a whole lot of old [gt]roff for the
> sake of making the man page true. That would unify the syntax of
> \s, \n, and \*. It would be as easy to recover from the change
> (with a sed script) as was groff's imposition of a gap in .sp12.
I have to agree with this. If people continue to format new content
with groff, then \s40 shouldn’t be a secret handshake for new users.
As for older documents, isn’t that what compatibility mode is for?
Larry
