At 2024-02-05T13:11:04-0600, Dave Kemper wrote: > On 2/5/24, G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robin...@gmail.com> wrote: > > As far as I know, groff has never extended AT&T troff syntax in _this_ > > respect. > > > > The argument count to requests (unlike macros) is seemingly sacrosanct. > > Groff extended the .ss request by adding an optional second parameter > where AT&T's took only one. It's not exactly the same situation, but > would seem to cross the same minefield.
Fair! I forgot about this. Before posting, I scanned down the request list in groff(7) to protect myself from embarrassment--uselessly. Witness the power of Cunningham's Law. I'm still not sure extending `ns` is the right idea, but my biggest objection appears to have evaporated, unless we expect that way more people use `ns` than `ss`,[1] and that we'll unleash havoc with this extension where `ss` did not. An alternative would be to have a new "alternate" no-space mode macro, probably named "ns1" (another naming convention I really dislike, but am hard pressed to improve upon). I'm not sure which I like less. Regards, Branden [1] I suspect more _macro packages_ do. Does it matter? I don't know.
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