28 Nov
2018
28 Nov
'18
7:26 a.m.
At 2018-11-27T16:57:43-0800, Eric Allman wrote:
> It is not known for certain what the \(lqe\(rq in
\(lqme\(rq stands for,
> but one can infer a derivation from the first initial of Eric P.\&
> Allman (then of the University of California), who wrote the original
> technical papers documenting the package.
[...]
That's basically correct, but there is a back
story. When I started
writing the -me macros it began as something in my private tree (I don't
remember what I called it). Then some other folks on the INGRES project
wanted to use it, but our system admin at the time didn't want to dicker
with the system namespace at the behest of a mere undergraduate, so he
didn't like anything that was actually descriptive lest people think it
was "official". He finally consented to "-meric" (which I always
hated), since it was obviously non-official. By the time my macros
became popular around Berkeley it got shortened to "-me", much to my relief.
The shortening also prevented associations with an ignominious character
in an episode of the original _Star Trek_[1], which would surely have
been especially bad marketing in the geek culture of the time.
Of course, if AT&T had been willing to let
Berkeley have -ms then most
likely -me would never have happened at all. Without a macro package,
nroff/troff is basically unusable; -me stepped into the vacuum.
I'm thinking it was an even larger example of silly cussedness because
by then, weren't the mm macros considered the new hotness at AT&T?
Amusingly enough, one of the most popular features of
-me was ".th"
mode, which set all the parameters to match the official constraints for
a U.C. Berkeley Ph.D. thesis. It was guaranteed to get past the "dragon
lady" who would reject the thesis if the margins were wrong.
It takes a computer to beat a computer. :)
Thank you! I'll update the man page. We seem to be finally be on the
precipice of a groff 1.22.4 release (knock touchpad).
Regards,
Branden
[1] "Bread and Circuses"