Linguist: Language rename: GAS and Groff

[larsbrinkhoff]

When language renaming becomes possible, I suggest these:

GAS → Unix Assembly
_GAS_ is the GNU implementation of the Unix _as_ assembler. The .s file extension isn't tied specifically to _gas_.

Groff → troff
_groff_ is the GNU implementation of the traditional Unix (or even older) typesetting software _troff_ (and _nroff_). See https://www.gnu.org/software/groff/manual/html_node/History.html.

[larsbrinkhoff]

Also, for similar reasons:

Bison → Yacc

[yegortimoshenko]

Groff → troff

While troff is definitely better than Groff (the latter is ridiculous) the language is called roff, as pointed in Wikipedia and in the manpage.

So, instead, it should be:

Groff → roff

/cc @larsbrinkhoff

[larsbrinkhoff]

Before submitting this issue, I read various documents, and it was not clear to me that roff is the obvious name for the language. For one thing, it's described as a predecessor to troff and nroff.

But I have nothing against roff, if that's what people want.

[yegortimoshenko]

@larsbrinkhoff Here are more sources that prove that the language name is roff:

• groff(7) manpage — see the title
• FreeBSD roff(7) manpage

troff is just one of numerous implementations of roff. There is nroff as well, for example. There is OpenBSD's mandoc that compiles roff as well. And there is groff, of course.

Particularly, linguist won't be able to decide between these implementations, since they are all mostly compatible. Hence roff language name should be used.

[bentley]

Yes, roff is the correct name. See also mandoc’s roff(7) manual and History of UNIX Manpages.

[Alhadis]

Definitely agreed.

Capitalisation-wise, how should roff be presented in languages.yml? ROFF, roff, or Roff?

The first strikes me as the most canon, but that might be me likening it to the original program's name, RUNOFF. I think the "correct" capitalisation is just roff, after the program itself.

[yegortimoshenko]

@Alhadis I have never seen it in uppercase. It is just roff.

[Alhadis]

Yeah, I'm currently developing a language package for Roff for Atom... and after extensive research into the language's history, I can tell you I fully agree. Must've been fooled by the capitalisation of a .TH statement somewhere. =)

Anyway, troff is no more accurate than groff, since both are the names of the binaries used to interpret the roff language. So it should definitely be Roff.

[pchaigno]

Closing in favor of #3278.

[yegortimoshenko]

@pchaigno Please reopen. The issue is only partially solved, Groff is now troff, which is no more correct than roff.

[Alhadis]

@yegortimoshenko Wrong. troff is short for "Typesetter roff", pronounced tee-roff. It's the name of an interpreter, not the language.

[yegortimoshenko]

@Alhadis That's the issue I'm talking about. It's like calling C language gcc. Fortunately, that's not the case. troff should be renamed into roff, which is the correct name of the format.

[Alhadis]

Ah wait, sorry, I misread you. I interpreted that as _"we should name this troff, not roff."_

Disregard.

[Alhadis]

That's also the name that we're going with; see #3278.

[yegortimoshenko]

Sorry, didn't see 673aeb32b9851cc58429c4b598c876292aaf70c7, only 247439b8e2f9285fc2adc2238868ae32048dffad. My soul can finally rest in peace :-)

[Alhadis]

So can mine. =)