Follow-up Comment #2, bug #65954 (group groff): Robust discussion about this took place on the email list, but it's hard to follow because it's entangled with multiple unrelated topics in lengthy messages. I'll try to tease out the relevant bits here. I'm also adding onf to this bug's cc.
onf wrote (http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2024-11/msg00103.html): "I don't feel like this fixes anything, honestly." Then came an example, and an alternate proposal. Branden replied (http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2024-11/msg00105.html): "It's pretty important to me to detangle adjustment from alignment. Continuing to heap complications on the existing `ad` request doesn't seem like a promising path forward to me." Elaboration and examples follow. Based on this discussion, onf wrote a new response to this bug's proposal (http://lists.gnu.org/r/groff/2024-11/msg00121.html) that has received no further response in the 10 days since. As that's the most recent word on the subject, I paste it here in full. I have looked at the adjustment/alignment proposal again. It makes sense, although I disagree with the addition of .adjust. It seems unnecessary to me given that .fi doesn't accept a boolean argument either. To me, the changes which allow .ad/.na to be used just like .fi/.nf are enough. Given that these changes make .ad finally true to its mnemonic of "adjust", I would suggest renaming .align to .al because: * it matches the naming scheme used with .ad * it seems more natural given the arguments are single characters: compare .al r with .align r (one would expect .align right) * short names make more sense for basic functions that are expected to be used often such as adjustment, alignment, filling, and various font properties (and all of them currently have them) * even many requests added by groff use aggressively shortened names (.als instead of .alias being the most salient example), so it cannot be argued that long names are somehow preferred Yes, I know I could do .als al align. It's just that I wish I didn't have to type that at the top of each document I write in plain troff. And given how many other basic functions are provided with two letter requests, I don't think making this one easier to remember for beginners would be of much value; they will have to remember all the other ones (or create aliases for them) anyway. _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?65954> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/
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