On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 3:53 PM G. Branden Robinson
<g.branden.robin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> At 2024-03-16T12:32:44-0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > 1. Do you think you'll change the long-standing groff default from
> > full justification to ragged right under nroff in the an macro set
> > for the next release?
>
> No.
> Here are a few reasons.
I'm in Ingo's camp in opposing man page full justification, but since
I can shut it off for myself, I've never felt the need to push for any
change on the groff end. But I'm not sold on these points in its
defense.
> Apparently, man page users on these systems have been
> accepting of adjustment ("full justification") for decades.
Or, like Frederic Chartier and me, they're overriding this default locally.
> James Clark seems to have used emulation of a SunOS 4 troff as a
> basis for his original work on GNU troff,
While an interesting evolutionary note, this doesn't seem to have much
bearing on how groff 2024 should behave.
> GNU roff also seems to have a principle that formatting for the
> terminal shall be done as similarly to that for typesetters as
> possible, within the admittedly severe constraints of the former.
I agree this is a laudable general principle for GNU roff. I don't
think this means its -man package needs to accept this default.
> It's _good_ for man page authors to minimize their assumptions in
> this respect.
True, but the AD configuration string will take care of this (perhaps
in even stronger terms, if users can set it to centering or ragged
left).
> One of the things I'd like a DeLorean for is to go back to Murray
> Hill in 1973 or so and yell, "Joe! Save the future! Make `it`
> respect `\c`!"
>
> The fiery balrog Ken Thompson would then implode me with his gaze...
Please bring a GoPro with you. There needs to be footage of this, and
any consumer video-recording technology of the early 1970s will
produce a format difficult to view today.
