Hi Branden,
> > > +.q !$%&\[aq]()*,/:;<=>?@[\[rs]]\[ha]\`{|}\[ti] .
> >
> > I agree that nothing much is wrong with using the \[] variable
> > length character escape syntax in manual pages nowadays from the
> > point of view of portability. Then again, i'm not convinced that
> > \[aq] is more readable than \(aq. Why would it be?
>
> We get used to delimiters being paired. :)
Depends on the delimiter: colon is an example, comma another.
To those used to troff, before GNU arrived, \(lq is just read as
a unit. We do not think of it as an opening which requires a close.
The parenthesis immediately tells us the length of what follows.
In contrast, a open bracket tends to be more heavier than the parenthesis
and made much worse by the noisy closing one which is redundant in the
common two-letter case. Plus one must scan for the ], detracting from
the flow of reading.
--
Cheers, Ralph.
