Re: [Groff] inconsistent synopsis for .MAILTO

[Rick Richardson]

On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 04:41:17PM +0100, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> >     .LINK [<url> [<description>]]
> > 
> > e.g.
> > 
> >     .LINK http://www.dot.com/joecool/home.html "My Home Page"
> > 
> > and also:
> > 
> >     .LINK http://www.dot.com/joecool/home.html
> >     Home Page for
> >     Silly Groff Tricks
> >     .LINK
> > 
> > Thats one macro name to remember, no special characters to remember
> > or type, and it works with short or long text.  No?
> 
> I like this, but how will you make the last syntax form work?  My
> suggestion is to have .LINK, .LINK-BEGIN and .LINK-END (or something
> similar) -- it's very error-prone if .LINK can start and end something
> at the same time.

You just check the number of arguments.  Two arguments starts and
ends an anchor.  One argument starts an anchor.  No arguments ends
an anchor.  Or am I missing something?

I'm not a big fan of overloading, but if its good enough for the
groff source, e.g.:

        void *lookup(symbol s, void *v=0);
        void *lookup(const char *);

then its good enough for the macros.  In the case of the macros, I'd
argue that the overloading is good because then people have to devote
fewer brain cells to remembering more keywords and do less typing for
something that they may need to use on a daily basis.  In the case of
function overloading in the groff source, its less of a defensible
position, IMHO.  But a lot of people say I'm just too old to get it.

-Rick

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