Re: [TUHS] Re: symbols in eqnchar

[Damian McGuckin]

Hi Branden,

On Wed, 5 Jul 2023, G. Branden Robinson wrote:

> I think not, and in fact I have a notion rumbling around in my head to
> move many/all of the predefined macros into "eqnrc" to make it more
> straightforward for people to (1) see how they're defined; (2) replace
> them; and (3) develop their own dialects of eqn if they want to.

Smart move.

> I think such a thing would probably be typed once per document, via an 
> "include" primitive, rather than every time eqn is run.  (And even if 
> "include" didn't exist, I figure that most serious *roff documents are 
> generated via Makefiles, not by ad hoc command line entry.)

As far as I can tell, the EQN

        include

does not honour the GROFF_TMAC_PATH search path. I think I would to see it 
default to

        . : the site-tmac directory : the standard tmac directory

but that might be a dumb idea. What does anybody else think?

Note that using an 'include' of a global file is problematic because there 
is no way to embed comments in that file as it must be solely EQN code.
        .
> The longer names would be my preference.  One of the selling points of 
> eqn is that it is supposed to resemble mathematical language as spoken 
> by a trained lecturer.  Abbreviations don't serve that goal.  Let users 
> come up with their own abbreviations.  A large and healthy community 
> will tend to accrete a set of accepted, useful ones to the extend that 
> doing so facilitates usage.[1]

For now, I have reworked the User Guide to NOT provide longer names 
and keeo to past practice. Mind you, as I said, IM have changed 'nomem' 
to 'notmem' in their implementation.

I do mention the longer names that (4 of us thought) are preferable in the 
body of the Guide and cross reference the EQNCHAR name. That said, that 
preferable longer name might not be what others think. The 4 of us are all 
Aussies and mostly engineers so others might think otherwise. Feedback 
needed there.

I do index the mention of those longer names and that cross reference.

I note that some people often abbreviate the "there exists" symbol, the 
reverse E, to the shorter form "exists" in their own code. So strictly 
correct long names will not suite everybody.

Also, what is an equals sign with a dot over it used for?

Thanks - Damian