[bug #60789] [man] reclaim "-man" "-m man" etc. arguments

[G. Branden Robinson]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?60789>

                 Summary: [man] reclaim "-man" "-m man" etc. arguments
                 Project: GNU troff
            Submitted by: gbranden
            Submitted on: Thu 17 Jun 2021 03:28:43 PM UTC
                Category: Macro - man
                Severity: 1 - Wish
              Item Group: Build/Installation
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
         Planned Release: None

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Details:

I propose to rename "an-old.tmac" to simply "an.tmac".  I'm not happy with
whiff of deprecation that the current nomenclature carries.  I've done a fair
amount of work on the macro package source, fixing bugs, rearranging it,
adding comments, and making it more accessible (or trying to).  I first mooted
a rename in broad terms last October, and reiterated it in April.  No one
screamed, so I propose now to be even bolder, permitting the "an" package to
reclaim its proper name among the macro packages.

This would be a NEWS-worthy item because the "-man" argument to groff (or
nroff, or troff) would no longer load the andoc wrapper.  Is this a problem? 
You might think so.  But I think I have discovered that it is not.  Most
people don't use groff(1) for batch-rendering of multiple man pages from one
invocation at the command line.  If they want to render multiple man pages,
they use man(1), which in turn appears to execute a separate groff process for
every page.  (And most of the time, people don't ask man(1) for multiple pages
anyway.)

Why do I characterize our users thus?  Because batch-rendering of multiple man
pages, up through groff 1.22.4 was very buggy, yet few reports of its obvious
flaws were present in the Savannah bug tracker or mentioned on this list. 
I've spent considerable effort making it work better.

I think andoc.tmac is cool and wish to keep it around; apart from being useful
for its stated purpose it's an excellent exhibit of how to do certain clever
things with the *roff language family (and brief enough to not defy
comprehension).  But I do not think the case for andoc arrogating the "-man"
argument to itself is a strong one.

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2020-10/msg00012.html
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2021-04/msg00027.html




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