I agree with Tadziu. Along with .cc and .c2, the .ec request opens up a world of creative (ab)uses that reward clever thinking.
On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 03:25, Tadziu Hoffmann <hoffm...@usm.uni-muenchen.de> wrote: > > > In that light, inventing .ec was a terrible language design > > mistake that should never have been permitted. It was also > > absolutely useless, which i have proven by implementing logic > > in the mandoc pre-parser that eliminates .ec before even > > starting the main parse sequence. So all that can be done > > with .ec can trivially be done without it as well. > > Here I must disagree. I found .ec very helpful in implementing > floats, where escapes must be evaluated during (delayed) rendering, > and not when the content is originally read. The idea here is to > allow escapes to be used identically in floats and normal running > text, without forcing the user to explicitly escape all escapes > in floats. (I think this is particularly useful when eqn-processed > material is used in floats, where the user has no real control > over the escapes.) > > I have no idea how I could have managed without using .ec to > deactivate escapes in the float, while still having the escape > mechanism functional for use by the macro itself. > > > >
