Follow-up Comment #38, bug #64360 (group groff): On Thursday, 5 February 2026 17:58:03 GMT G. Branden Robinson wrote: > Follow-up Comment #37, bug #64360 (group groff): > > [much context preserved because this is such a sprawling argument] > [much context removed - it's sprawling.]
It's time to re-target the discussion back to the stated purpose of this "wish" ticket. Purpose of the ticket. Before Branden changes the format of the grout to include some white space, to make it more human readable, gropdf needs some changes. It does not use any groff libraries, so even if those libraries can parse the extra white space, gropdf does not. What we agree on. That humans regularly reading grout are a very small group, possibly just Branden and I in the main. Examining grout files is very useful in debugging, including comparing grout between versions to see what has changed. Documentation on the precise format for grout (even groff's version) is not unambiguous. I'm not sure if we agree on this one: this ticket describes the "incorrect behaviour" of gropdf in not supporting white space which does not appear in current grout, but I am unable to find a "feature change" ticket which proposes to alter current grout format where the desirability of adding white space could be discussed. Sometimes changes to grout will be unavoidable as groff develops further, and I hope that I am included in the discussion as to how it might impact gropdf BEFORE final decisions are made. What we disagree on. I don't find the added white space particularly helpful in aiding comprehension, perhaps because I have been gazing at grout for longer than Branden. But I believe "chacun a son gout" so developed one line perl script to show grout in exactly the way he wants to see it, but he does not want to use it. Equally, I could write a little script which removed the white space to satisfy my "gout". Except that if the format of grout is altered it means that grout before the change cannot directly be compared with the new version, it would require an extra step to reformat one of the versions. I think this falls under Ingo's definition of a "gratuitious change" (see <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2026-02/msg00030.html>). In that possibly the only person, out of regular grout readers, who would find this beneficial, is Branden himself, and I find no evidence an attempt was made to guage support for this change before this ticket was created (apologies if I missed it). Finally, I don't think imposing a change to grout which necessitates a change to gropdf without prior discussion with gropdf's author is conducive to cooperative development of a project. Cheers Deri _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?64360> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
