[bug #63354] Refine fallbacks.tmac

[Dave]

Follow-up Comment #15, bug #63354 (project groff):

Yeah, this ticket is chockablock with to-do items, but they're sprinkled
across several comments and interspersed with a couple of blind alleys.  So
here's a checklist of tasks.

1. reorder file ([comment #0 original submission])
2. consistently comment file ([comment #0 original submission])
3. comment out \[u200B] until bug #58958 resolved (comment #5)
4. permanently remove \[u2010] (comment #8)
5. potentially defer \[u2011] until bug #63360 resolved (comment #10)
6. fix \[u2012] ([comment #0 original submission]; correction in comment #13)
7. refine \[u2016] definition for robustness ([comment #0 original
submission])
8. comment out \[u2018], \[u2019], \[u201C], and \[u201D] until bug #59932
resolved (comment #11)
9. permanently remove \[u2026] (comment #6)
10. add a \[u202F] fallback (comment #4)
11. give \[u203D] an nroff fallback (comment #9, as amended by comment #12)
12. refine \[u2052] definition for robustness ([comment #0 original
submission])

Every one of these involves an alteration to commit 132182bd
<http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/commit/?id=132182bd>, which was
added since 1.22.4, so for 1.23 purposes, the pertinent question is: which
changes make things better as-is, and which make things worse, since the last
release?

Obviously, "better" and "worse" are subjective.  But I'm gonna go ahead and
pretend they aren't, and further pretend that I'm the final arbiter, and pass
judgment on every item above.

1. Refactor only.  Irrelevant to 1.23.
2. Refactor only.  Irrelevant to 1.23.
3. Should be done before 1.23, since the the current definition is broken, and
groff has a long-established escape for doing this.
4. Not important to 1.23 (though OTOH removing the line is trivial so why
not).
5. Should be done before 1.23: while it's a shame to not be able to support
U+2011, the subpar rendering is worth addressing before it's unleashed onto
the world.
6. The fix to this is (probably) not trivial, but the current rendering is
ugly, so this should be commented out before 1.23.
7. Should be done before 1.23: fix is simple and avoids plausible real-world
problems.
8. Should be done before 1.23: these four have long-established groff aliases
that do the right thing, while these fallbacks would degrade typography.
9. Should be done before 1.23: only degrades typography without any upside in
real-world usage, since Symbol will always be there.
10. Not important to 1.23.
11. Not important to 1.23.
12. Probably not important to 1.23, mostly because there's no easy fix.  The
potential pitfall to the user is a seemingly inexplicable character
substitution, but U+2052 is obscure enough that I don't see much practical
risk.

These opinions are correct and incontrovertible.  I have spoken.


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