Re: [PATCH] nextup.3: minor improvements

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi John,

At 2024-08-09T19:35:21+1000, John Gardner wrote:
> > 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. \}

I don't have a proof, but I think we're boxed in syntactically by AT&T
troff (or even nroff) design decisions here.  We can't use spaces as you
want because otherwise the formatter doesn't know where the conditional
expression ends and its consequent (the "then" of the branch) begins.

---snip---
   The above operators can't be combined with most others, but a leading
'!', not followed immediately by spaces or tabs, complements an
expression.

     .nr x 1
     .ie !r x register x is not defined
     .el      register x is defined
         => register x is defined

   Spaces and tabs are optional immediately after the 'c', 'd', 'F',
'm', 'r', and 'S' operators, but right after '!', they end the predicate
and the conditional evaluates true.(5)  (*note Operators in
Conditionals-Footnote-5::)
[...]
   (5) This bizarre behavior maintains compatibility with AT&T 'troff'.
---end snip---

> 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).

^351da0dcd troff/input.c            (James Clark         1991-06-02 04:20:34 
-0500 1223)     case '?':
587bd704da src/roff/troff/input.cpp (G. Branden Robinson 2024-07-13 12:35:49 
-0500 1224)       (void) input_stack::get(0);
^351da0dcd troff/input.c            (James Clark         1991-06-02 04:20:34 
-0500 1225)       return ESCAPE_QUESTION;

> True, but there are other, more cumbersome examples where author intent
> must be communicated textually.

"Typographically", I would say.

> Docopt <https://docopt.org/> is probably my favourite example of this.

Mmm, SSL certificate security alert.

Looks like yet another spawn of Markdown.

Meaning yet another inversion of one of the Zens of Python:

"Implicit is better than explicit."

Color me unenthused.  Also old and opposed to all progress.  ;-)

> 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]

I've seen that one.  Another thing to know is that apparently those
Teletype machines weighed on the order of a few hundred pounds^W^Wa
couple of hundred kilograms.

> 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>.

Workers of the world unite and seize the means of production!  Thank you
for coming to my KARLTalk.

> 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?

"Being first is better than being best."

> [1] Search Enshittification Operation, or the cancer that's eroded the
> usefulness of search engines in recent years.

Google lost their search monopoly case in the United States; I'll be
interested to see if the Supreme Court overturns that or if the next
administration has the stones to impose divestiture.

> [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.

Wealth equals genius.  That's why so many people are born smarter than
Stephen Hawking or Kenneth Arrow or C. F. Gauss.

> [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.

I like being reminded of the diverse population of humans behind the
monikers we see on the discussion list.

> [4] Thank you, late-stage Capitalism, for returning us—the working
> class—to serfdom.

I'd say we never really left.

> 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.

Hey, man, the rent and surplus value of labor ain't gonna extract
_itself_.

Regards,
Branden

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature