Re: rethinking @def*

[Gavin Smith]

On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 04:51:11PM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote:
> I don't feel strongly about whether @t should force upright font.  I'm
> happy if it is just @code.  I will take the @t out if you haven't already.

Done.

> I had thought that @code could be forced to be upright on
> a slanted @def line, at least.  Whether it should be upright everywhere
> else doesn't really matter; we could go with what is the easiest to
> implement.  It's probably safest just to keep it to the @def line.

I'd hoped we could consider more about where @var should be in
a variable width font.  I'm still tempted to make it unconditionally
slanted roman everywhere (in LaTeX output, not HTML output).  This
would eliminate the need for special treatment on the def line or
elsewhere.  See my other mail for where else it would be better to
use this font for the output of @var.  (Sorry if it seems like this
conversation is going around in circles or if it seems like I'm constantly
changing my mind...)

Since @var on a def line is a more important use case than @code, if
we didn't special case @var then it wouldn't be worth special casing
@code there either.  Then we could avoid layering hacks upon hacks.  I
suspect it would be cumbersome to make the interaction with embrac
100% correct.

If people wanted upright @code on a slanted @def line then there would
be other ways to achive this, like doing @r{@code{...}}, or using
@deftype without a type.