Re: [Groff] Re: new grotty format

[Rick Richardson]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 01:59:41PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Rick Richardson wrote:
> 
> > OTOH, at least some of those programs which read Groff's output don't
> > handle the defacto overstrike conventions, either.  For example,
> > "enscript" recognizes underline but not bold. "a2ps" recognizes bold
> > but not underline.
  
> > Here is a chance, at the cost of a bit of forced transitional pain, to
> > make it easier for those kinds of programs to recognize underline,
> > bold, and color with a single state machine.
> 
> So you are saying that, because enscript doesn't support the traditional 
> troff way of underlining and bold, users of those programs which do 
> support it need to suffer ``transitional pain''?  That's an interesting 
> approach, I must say...
> 
> Note that I'm not against introduction of this feature.  I'm merely 
> saying that an incompatible behavior should not be introduced as the 
> default, before users and programs have been given chance to adapt.

How long a period do you propose for the default to remain overstrikes
before it is switched to SGR?  Do you honestly think this period will
be used to prepare as you envision?  Or will there just be a flag day
at the end of the period anyway, as usual?  Or will the flag day never
come at all, as with, for example, 'nawk'.

Yes, I think there should be a flag day, it should come as soon as
possible, and a method can be provided to *disable* flag day for those
people who will never be ready for a flag day no matter what you do to
prepare them.

-Rick

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