Re: Inconsistent "<acronym>" use

Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 01:11:07PM -0800, Noah Misch wrote:
>> https://tdg.docbook.org/tdg/5.2/acronym.html suggests docbook formatters
>> either ignore that <acronym> or use it as a signal to substitute small caps.
>> I don't consider small caps an improvement for "SQL", so I'd prefer to never
>> use <acronym>SQL</acronym>. <acronym> also makes the markup longer (though
>> one could mitigate that with an entity like &SQL). However, standardizing on
>> either way is better than varying within the manual.

> I think smallcaps is almost always a win for acronyms.

I'm with Noah: small caps are *not* an improvement, they're just
distractingly fussy. I note that the authors of the stylesheets
we use seem to agree, because AFAICS <acronym> is not rendered
specially in either HTML or PDF output.

Given this docbook.org advice, I'd be inclined to just remove
our use of <acronym> altogether. Although, since it isn't actually
making any difference, it's not clear that it's worth doing anything.
The largest effect of trying to standardize (in either direction)
would be to create back-patching hazards for docs fixes.

regards, tom lane