Follow-up Comment #7, bug #58682 (project groff):
[comment #6 comment #6:]
> But that is a tighter restriction than is necessary
> on the name space,
It is, but it's impossible to concisely document the available namespace, even
when that space is limited to two characters. ".mp, .np, and .op are
available; .lp and .pp are not" gets clunky pretty quickly. It's a useful
simplification to say "all names fitting this pattern are available" without
additionally implying "ONLY names fitting this pattern are available."
Asterisk-followed-by-alphanumeric gives 62 unique macro names for the novice
user; the power user can read the code and figure out what others he can
grab.
> and not an example that is modeled in Allman's own documents,
> the intro and reference manuals.
Yes, but at the time Allman was the supreme -me power user.
> Maybe he meant the `*` as a glob.
With X being defined as any alphanumeric, it's hard to imagine what * might
glob for, since a lot of single-character-followed-by-an-alphanumeric
identifiers are in use.
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