The author worked on ALGOL 68C and probably intended to reuse the more familiar ...

		wgml on Jan 31, 2020 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: The Bourne Shell Source Code The author worked on ALGOL 68C and probably intended to reuse the more familiar syntax. Nowadays, I would indeed consider it a bad practice to use such macros. Especially if you intend to share the project with anyone else.