Re: [PATCH] termios.3: SPARC architecture has 4 different Bnnn constants

["G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>]

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Hi, Pali!

At 2021-07-31T16:55:01+0200, Pali Rohár wrote:
> SPARC is special, it does not have Bnnn constants for baud rates above
> 2000000. Instead it defines 4 Bnnn constants with smaller baud rates.
> 
> This difference between SPARC and non-SPARC architectures is present
> in both glibc API (termios.h) and also kernel ioctl API
> (asm/termbits.h).
[...]
>  	B1500000
>  	B2000000
> +.ft P

I see you're following existing termios(3) page practice here, so this
feedback may be more for Alex and Michael than you; it's not a
criticism.

I would discourage the use of the *roff 'ft' request in man pages.
Here, it is redunant because the following PP macro will set the font
style back to roman anyway.

I also discourage the use of tab characters in man page sources (outside
of tbl(1) tables).

I'll show my recommendation in a few lines.

> +.fi
> +.PP
> +On SPARC architecture are additionally supported these constants:
> +.PP
> +.nf
> +.ft B
> +	B76800
> +	B153600
> +	B307200
> +	B614400
> +.ft P
> +.fi

Here's how I'd do that:

.P
On the SPARC architecture,
the following additional constants are supported.
.RS
.TP
.B B76800
.TQ
.B B153600
.TQ
.B B307200
.TQ
.B  B614400
.RE

Why would I do it this way?  I'm trying to keep the size of the language
we ask man page writers to learn as small as possible, and I especially
try to keep the number of *roff requests they have to know as close to
zero as possible.  There are already two ways to change fonts: through
macros and escape sequences.  Personally, I'd like to protect casual man
page writers from having to learn the third.  (And, again, outside of
tbl(1) tables, I'd prefer they not have to know the second [escapes].)

Regards,
Branden

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