Re: [PATCH] nextup.3: minor improvements

[John Gardner]

Hi Branden,

Numeric expressions are already valid conditional expressions, so all we'd
> need here is a syntax for interpolating an output device parameter. […] As
> it happens, `\T` is *not* yet taken.


True, but for fields that have lengthy values, it might help to have a
syntax for testing the presence (or absence) of a space-delimited token:

.ie T styles & BI \{ This device supports \f(BIbold-italic\fP text! \}
.el               \{ "BI" not listed in the DESC file's "styles" field. \}

However, I see the greater flexibility of an escape sequence that can be
utilised anywhere, not just in conditional expressions. Its output can
always be passed to a list-wrangling macro or something.

And yes, there's a story behind all those wacky `\?` things.


Wait, how long has that been supported\? (I've been away from Groff for the
past year-and-a-half, so apologies if this was a very recent addition).

And a document author, particularly of a man page, does *not* want to rely
> solely on text style changes to communicate meaning.


You're right. Hell, I believe I've made this exact same point in the past
when discussing A11Y, SEO,[1] and legible .textContent
<https://mdn.io/DOM/Node.prototype.textContent> properties.

As a rule it's prudent to ensure that your meaning is adequately conveyed
> when the text is read aloud. That's a laudable practice in all writing.


True, but there are other, more cumbersome examples where author intent
must be communicated textually. Docopt <https://docopt.org/> is probably my
favourite example of this.

Good luck. If you are ever successful I may send you a draft notice
> enlisting you in the improvement of Groff's hardcopy terminal support.


Thanks! I'm not hedging my bets, though, so in the meantime you can hit up this
guy <https://youtu.be/S81GyMKH7zw> who somehow got an ASR-33 talking to
Linux and even Twitter's API <https://youtu.be/X904FYolBs0>.[2]

Email is for old men attempting to thwart all progress.


Or 37-year old hermits with ADHD who avoid instant messaging apps or social
media in favour of a digital medium most familiar to them.[3]

Also, the *real* old men who're attempting to thwart all progress are the
CEOs of Big Tech companies who keep shoving AI down our throats,
irrespective of whether we asked for it or not.[4] Because line must go up
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g>.


(I assume that Slack and Discord clients support "rich text", and eagerly
> convert each word of styled text into 100kiB of CSS-ful HTML overhead)


Christ, I hear ya. You'd think a text-based medium like the Web would have
some efficient means of encoding textual content in a form separate from
presentational rules, in both a readable and approachable text format.
Shame that we now require Markdown processors to generate the HTML that's
piped through to the middleware that's rendered client-side in the user's
browser after loading 4.5 MBs of CDN-hosted fonts that only marginally
differ from system-installed typefaces, displayed after 10 MBs of
unoptimised Webpack chunks are loaded by the browser. I mean, what the hell
was Tim Berners-Lee thinking?

[1] Search Enshittification Operation, or the cancer that's eroded the
usefulness of search engines in recent years.
[2] Before it was ruined by Elon's BIG BRAIN™ decision to paywall the
site's API, effectively defeating its intended purpose to make Twitter
accessible to the broader web.
[3] The main advantage of the latter being that I can proof-read my
dexie-fuelled ramblings before making them public. So there's really no
excuse for this e-mail.
[4] Thank you, late-stage Capitalism, for returning us—the working class—to
serfdom. I'm sure the elites work very, very hard and aren't at all
leeching off of an inherently unsustainable system built upon exploitation
of labour.

^D