Re: [Groff] Question about .substring

[Steffen Nurpmeso]

Ingo Schwarze <address@hidden> wrote:
 |Steffen Nurpmeso wrote on Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 11:45:04AM +0100:
 |> Ingo Schwarze <address@hidden> wrote:
 |>> Steffen Nurpmeso wrote on Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 06:09:08PM +0100:
 |
 |>>> For S-roff i will add a .substr request which takes an index and
 |
 |>> Please don't.  That is completely equivalent and trivial to convert
 |>> in either direction, so it merely bloats the user interface for no
 |
 |> Oh yes i will.. starting with a roff macro.
 |
 |What a pity.  I see you are already working hard to be incompatible
 |before you have even made your first release.  That's not going to
 |help adoption.  That said, i'll probably shut up about similar
 |issues in the future because, well, a competing package that is
 |being gratuitiously incompatible is not going to go anywhere, so
 |commenting on it is likely a waste of time...  :-(

Oh come one, please don't.
But isn't the problem that .substring is plain broken and that
existing use cases would be double-broken if .substring would be
fixed?
So if i _calculate_ some substring start and length (or for
heaven's sake: end index [of course length - 1]) and that turns
out as "2" and "2", then my maths say that i want an empty
substring -- but this i won't get?
Thus: "new game, new luck" (when translating a german saying).

--steffen