Re: GNUism in groff tests, was: pic anomalies

[Ingo Schwarze]

Hi Ralph,

Ralph Corderoy wrote on Tue, Dec 31, 2019 at 08:32:30AM +0000:
> Branden Robinson wrote:

>> I don't mind limiting ourselves to portable POSIX sh

> For some version of POSIX.  :-)

For some standards, clarifying which one you want to follow can
be a tough problem (e.g. CSS, anyone?).  But POSIX is actually
unusually benign in this respect.  POSIX 2008 is still in force
and widely adopted (though of course, many commercial UNIXes
still implement POSIX 2001, but i doubt that's relevant in the
present context).  In a few years, there will probably be a new
POSIX standard, and at some point, it might make sense to follow
that one.  Changes are not likely to be disruptive either, maybe
not even large.

A standard that updates in relatively small steps about once a
decade is really convenient to work with and causes relatively
little versioning hassle.

Yours,
  Ingo