Re: backslash no longer works in indices

[Karl Berry]

    This is *really* disappointing!  

Yes, I know.  Sorry.

To be completely truthful, I also am continually disappointed ... by the
extremely extensive use of @macro -- going far, far, far, beyond
anything that was ever envisioned.  Brian hacked a @macro command into
makeinfo without (evidently) thinking at all about the implications for
texinfo.tex, or indeed the line-orientation of Texinfo syntax, for which
it is fundamentally unsuited.  Now we remain stuck with it all these
years later.  I am very sorry that I ever agreed to promulgate it.  If I
had had more willpower I would have refused in the first place and done
something more workable.

My general advice is to abandon your ever-expanding use of @macro and
change your Makefiles to preprocess through m4.

    Maybe it makes sense to introduce a
      @backslash

Yes, I thought about that too.  It makes sense, but even that turned out
to be not exactly easy to get right in all contexts.

karl