Re: [Groff] current version of an-ext.tmac

[Eric S. Raymond]

Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden>:
> 
> > A suggestion: Arguments to .UE and .ME, if any, should be glued on
> > to the end of the output.
> 
> Is there a reason for that?  What exactly do you have in mind?  In
> other macro pairs .TS/.TE, .TE doesn't take arguments either...

The case isn't parallel.  .TS/.TE is a block element, not an inline.
(If .TE were to take an argument, it should mean something like 
"table caption".)

I kept finding myself writing this:

.MT address@hidden
subscribe to the foobar mailing list
.ME
\&.

in an effort to get a period properly glued to the end of the line.
Eventually I realize that what I needed to do was this:

.MT address@hidden .
subscribe to the foobar mailing list
.ME

but that seemed wacky to me because the period for the sentence has to
go before the sentence.  What I wanted was to write this, which would
seem more natural:

.MT address@hidden
subscribe to the foobar mailing list
.ME .

Actually, list comma makes a stronger case for this. Consider 

banana, orange, 
.UR http://www.kumquat.com ,
kumquat
.UE
apple

versus 

banana, orange, 
.UR http://www.kumquat.com
kumquat
.UE ,
apple

To me the second looks much more natural.
 
> In plain text, you normally write
> 
>   Eric S. Raymond <address@hidden>
> 
> and not
> 
>   Eric S. Raymond <mailto:address@hidden>

Good point :-).
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>