Re: [groff] groff Digest, Vol 172, Issue 8

[David Major]

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On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 12:02 PM <address@hidden> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: modernize -T ascii rendering of opening single quote
>       (Ingo Schwarze)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2019 15:38:55 +0100
> From: Ingo Schwarze <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [groff] modernize -T ascii rendering of opening single
>         quote
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi,
>
> Doug McIlroy wrote on Mon, Feb 04, 2019 at 07:33:05PM -0500:
>
> > Ingo has recorded me as being opposed to rendering \(oq and \(cq
> > the same in -T ascii.
> >
> > I had raised the issue of ` in m4 and shell scripts. However, it
> > is good practice to make examples by pasting in working code,
> > which can in turn be cut, especially from nroff-ed documents.
> >
> > The rendering of \(oq is irrelevant to this practice.
> >
> > For publishing m4 programs, however, it is really nice
> > to have symmetrical left and right quotes. On asking around
> > (and also in some of my own work), I find that people are
> > very likely to use "changequote" to bracketing pairs such
> > as {} [] <> and not to risk damaging the code by transliteration
> >
> > I conclude that my concern is very iffy. It should not be
> > taken as a "no" vote.
>
> OK, that makes sense to me, thanks for clarifying.
> I have updated the list and also added Colin (see at the end).
>
> So it still isn't a perfect consensus, in particular due to Mike's
> strong opposition.
>
> I don't think the "backward compatibility" argument is actually
> very strong in this particular context.  The meaning of \(oq is
> "opening quote", and that doesn't change.  In most contexts,
> representing an opening quote as ' is likely to be just fine.  Even
> in those (rare?) contexts where it may not be ideal, it only affects
> -T ascii output, while arguably modes like PostScript and PDF are
> critical for groff's typesetting quality.  Everybody knows that
> expressing typesetting in ASCII can only be a compromise in the
> first place.
>
> The arguments that Ralph brought to the table have maybe not been
> fully evaluated yet, see my last mail to him, so i'd be interested
> in the outcome of that before a final decision.
>
> Yours,
>   Ingo
>
>
>
> For easy reference, here is an overview of the arguments concluded
> so far, as i understood them:
>
> BENEFITS:
> ---------
>  - stop relying on a historic meaning of ASCII 0c60
>    that was never portable and that conflicts with Unicode
>  - compatibility with modern (Unicode-compatible) fonts
>    that treat ASCII 0x60 unambiguously as "accent grave"
>    (admittedly, people often use -Tutf8 together with those)
>  - but still useful when using LC_CTYPE=C temporarily, for example
>    in build system contexts or when logged into remote machines,
>    and for those people always using LC_CTYPE=C with modern fonts
>  - symmetry with the ASCII rendering of \(lq
>  - symmetry with groff error messages etc.
>  - compatibility with the GNU coding standards
>    https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Quote-Characters.html
>    (admittedly, for roff output, historic precendent may be more
>     important than GNU coding standards, so i give this argument last)
>
> DOWNSIDES:
> ----------
>  - may cause issues when post-processing -Tascii output with scripts
>    (but how many people do that, and rely specifically on quotes?)
>  - may break existing documents that incorrectly use \(oq to
>    specifically get the ASCII 0x60 ` output glyph
>  - looks worse with traditional fonts that provide an "opening quote"
>    glyph for ASCII 0x60 rather than an "accent grave" glyph
>  - typos of \(oq vs. \(cq are no longer obvious in ASCII output
>    (but ASCII is weak for detecting typos in the first place)
>
>
> OPPOSED:
> --------
> Mike Bianchi       -- strongly opposed because he values backward
>                       compatibility above all else
>
> NOT YET DECIDED OR NO OBVIOUS PREFERENCE:
> -----------------------------------------
> Ralph Corderoy     -- slightly sceptical, considers whether
>                       preserving historical rendering has value,
>                       and likes fonts rendering ` ' symmetrically
> Werner Lemberg     -- not quite explicit, but does not seem to
>                       dislike ` ' in the first place
> Doug McIlroy       -- not opposed,
>                       but did not express clear support either
>
> IN FAVOUR:
> ----------
> Anthony Bentley    -- clearly in favour
> Bertrand Garrigues -- clearly in favour
> Colin Watson       -- in favour because it improves display of manual
>                       pages remotely with LC_CTYPE=C while using a
>                       modern font locally
> Dave Kemper        -- seems to not object
> Ingo Schwarze      -- in favour without feeling too strongly
> Jason McIntyre     -- would be OK with changing it
> Jeff Conrad        -- clearly in favour
> Ted Unangst        -- would be happy with the change
>
>
>
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> End of groff Digest, Vol 172, Issue 8
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