Re: mandoc shortcomings

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On 16 December 2015 at 03:22, James K. Lowden <jklowden%schemamania.org@localhost> wrote:

> It seems to me we have two valid choices, neither of which we've
> adopted:
>
> 1.  Use mandoc, and ensure that everything in base and pkgsrc is
> compatible with it.
>
> 2.  Use something else (probably groff for now) that renders all man
> pages in base and pkgsrc.
>
> Blindly adopting mandoc and letting the bits fall where they may is not
> a recipe for utility, let alone greatness.

There is at least one other option between 1 and 2 (which comes with
two variants :)
- Use mandoc for everything in base, and ensure everything in base is
compatible with it. (I would agree that the latter should be a
prerequisite for the former).
- For pkgsrc either default to mdoc and have a per package option to
indicate that package needs more than mandoc can provide (similar to
the 'need bash as a shell' type options we already have), or just
default to groff everywhere.