Re: Proposed: rename `ptr` request to `pwh` (with transition period)

On Tue, Dec 23, 2025 at 3:13 PM G. Branden Robinson
<[email protected]> wrote:
> `ptr` is a groff extension, so we're _not_ stuck with it.

I don't think it's that simple.  Back compatibility should apply to
any long-established features, not just ones that predate groff.  I
don't know when the .ptr request was added, but it's been around at
least 26 years (it was documented in the original version of the
texinfo manual, committed in 1999).  That's longer than the entirety
of pre-groff troff history.

I don't object to this particular change -- I agree that it being a
debugging rather than production request gives its back compatibility
less weight -- but to the idea that groff innovations are absolved
from compatibility responsibilities.  That ignores how much of troff
history *is* now groff history.