Re: Should .At 32v rather be [AT&T] UNIX/32V rather than Version 32 AT&T UNIX?

[Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de>]

Hello Nab,

the string "UNIX/32V" actually makes sense in retrospect because
many later operating systems used strings like "systemname/architecture"
to distinguish between ports of "systemname" to different architectures.
Consequently, i do not object to using this string "UNIX/32V" as
part of the output from .At 32v .

I do insist, however, that the printed string must contain "AT&T".
While UNIX/32V is reasonably well known in general, there may still
be people hearing it for the first time and not knowing it came
from AT&T.

Using "AT&T UNIX/32V" would seem like an improvement to me because it
makes clear that "32V" is not a version number.

Then again, i think printing "Version 7 AT&T UNIX/32V" might be even better
because some people may not know that 32v is just a port of v7, and it is
not that much longer.

You might worry that the "32V" is easy to overlook in "Version 7
AT&T UNIX/32V".  But i would argue that manual pages need to be
read attentively in general.  Small differences in wording are often
crucial, and if a hasty reader misses this particular detail, that's
unlikely to have dire consequences.

The way to make this change is to open a feature request at

  https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=groff

unless somebody has already done that, post a message to <groff@gnu.org>
mentioning that ticket and briefly summarizing the rationale,
ideally also including the patch at the end to ease review.
Once that is pushed to the groff git, i will make sure mandoc follows.


Nab wrote on Thu, Aug 19, 2021 at 01:54:47PM +0200:

> But the end-goal is to be correct, which I believe the current string
> is not, and I'm inclined to believe that it was a throwaway decision

I believe Cynthia Livingston did not usually make "throwaway decisions".

> nobody remembers

Cynthia added it in this commit:

s 00128/00026/00064
d D 5.3 91/04/20 02:36:13 cael 5 3
c register usage changes, reorg .St macro

.\" Ns At macro - AT&T UNIX
.de At
.nr cF \\n(.f
.nr cZ \\n(.s
.ds aa \&\f\\n(cF\s\\n(cZ
.if \\n(.$==2 \{\
.       if "\\$1"32v" \&Version 32V \\*(tNAT&T UNIX\\*(aa\\$2
.       if "\\$1"v6"  \&Version 6 \\*(tNAT&T UNIX\\*(aa\\$2
.       if "\\$1"v7"  \&Version 7 \\*(tNAT&T UNIX\\*(aa\\$2
.       if "\\$1"V"  \&\\*(tNAT&T\\*(aa System V \\*(tNUNIX\\*(aa\\$2
.       if "\\$1"V.1"  \&\\*(tNAT&T\\*(aa System V.1 \\*(tNUNIX\\*(aa\\$2
.\}
.if \\n(.$==1 \{\
.       if "\\$1"32v" \&Version 32V \\*(tNAT&T UNIX\\*(aa
.       if "\\$1"v6"  \&Version 6 \\*(tNAT&T UNIX\\*(aa
.       if "\\$1"v7"  \&Version 7 \\*(tNAT&T UNIX\\*(aa
.       if "\\$1"V"  \&\\*(tNAT&T\\*(aa System V \\*(tNUNIX\\*(aa
.       if "\\$1"V.1"  \&\\*(tNAT&T\\*(aa System V.1 \\*(tNUNIX\\*(aa
.\}
..

Did you ask her whether she remembers why she chose these particular
words?  She is alive for all i know, and was well last time i
exchanged mail with her.  Then again, maybe this is not really
important enough to bother her.

If the wording can be improved, it can be changed.

Yours,
  Ingo
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