Re: removing the .IX macro from the ms package in 1.23 breaks old documents

[G. Branden Robinson]

At 2024-10-03T20:58:34+0100, Deri wrote:
> I agree stagnation is not good, but it is undesirable if changes break 
> existing documents.

Yes, if something breaks/alters the rendering of an existing document,
it is best if that alteration is offset by a more valuable benefit.

Admittedly, I see properties like "a clean interface" as having value,
perhaps much more than other people might.

> An example is the utp document which a lot of people on this list put
> together. Neither the original 1.0, producing postscript, nor 1.1,
> producing a pdf, now build properly, from
> https://github.com/larrykollar/ Unix-Text-Processing.
> 
> Various problems occur using current git groff, from extra blank
> pages, text which was set as mono spaced appearing as Times-Roman, pdf
> bookmarks jumping to the wrong page, input line numbers appearing in
> the output (1.0 postscript only - also affects 1.23.0 - Ok in 1.22.4).

Quite the litany: groff 1.23.0 spent 4½ years in development, has been
out for 15 months, had 5 release candidates before that, and I'm only
_now_ hearing about _any_ of this?

> Are all of these changes in behaviour really fixes to bugs in groff?

Impossible to say with the minimal information I have at present.  Each
must be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Regards,
Branden

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature