[ On Monday, February 17, 2003 at 17:15:34 (+0100), Thomas Klausner wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: groff update?
>
> On Mon, Feb 17, 2003 at 09:34:54AM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> > [ On Monday, February 17, 2003 at 12:47:32 (+0100), Thomas Klausner wrote: ]
> > > Subject: Re: groff update?
> > >
> > > So for the switch to happen, we'd need to do two things:
> > > a) teach the new mdoc package the .Nm "" syntax
> > 
> > No, that's bogus.  Leaving it as it is the only right thing to do.  The
> > new mdoc package should never learn the broken syntax -- the groff folks
> > are 100% correct about this.
> 
> Have you heard about "backwards compatibility"?
> 
> For example, when you still want to view unmodified NetBSD-1.3.1 man pages
> correctly on NetBSD-2.0 systems.

I don't think you're asking the right question.  So far NetBSD releases
have always been delivered with pre-formatted manual pages.  I.e. you
can always view the NetBSD-1.x manual pages correctly on any newer system.

Why do you think you need to re-format old manual pages with the new
macros?  Seriously!  Why?

Even if you have some valid reason to re-format old manual pages, why
can't you use the old macros to do so?

There is no need for backwards compatability of the new macros.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;            <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;           <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>