At 2022-07-02T19:47:49+0200, Ingo Schwarze wrote: > Hi Branden, > > G. Branden Robinson wrote on Sat, Jul 02, 2022 at 11:57:21AM -0500: > > > I was thinking this morning that at least groff's lex.cpp for eqn > > could be translated into EBNF for a groff_eqn(7) page; that way the > > extensions would be documented too. > > In fact, i'm not a fan of putting BNF into user-facing documentation. > It is good for a language definition in a formal standard because it > is relatively precise for describing syntax, compared to less formal > ways of describing syntax. > > But for user documentation, the downside of separating the description > of syntax and semantics, and the downside of BNF being less readable > than a less formal syntax description, usually outweigh the benefit of > higher precision.
Hmm, okay, I can see that. > > So what I would like to see is an _original_ document introducing > > the novice to GNU eqn. > [... reordered ...] > > Before we have such a thing in tutorial form, we should probably > > have a comprehensive eqn language _reference_, and a groff_eqn(7) > > page could well be the vehicle for that. > > I certainly don't object to that approach. > What you say sounds reasoable to me. > > By the way, it looks like Ted Harding did something like that: > > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2013-10/pdfTyBN2VWR1c.pdf I had no idea this existed. Thank you! It _is_ nice. I wonder if Ted's still around, and willing to contribute it to groff officially. If not, I guess I'll have to take some notes and then never look at it again so that I can rewrite it (or give my notes to someone else so that they can). Regards, Branden
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