From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [Emacs-diffs] master 9ce1d38: Use curved quotes in core elisp diagnostics Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 17:35:51 +0000 Message-ID: <20150817173551.GB2634@acm.fritz.box> References: <20150816160149.9416.80132@vcs.savannah.gnu.org> <55D1043C.3030909@yandex.ru> <55D15899.2070105@cs.ucla.edu> <20150817121513.GA2634@acm.fritz.box> <55D21191.8070202@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1439841899 5464 80.91.229.3 (17 Aug 2015 20:04:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 20:04:59 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Dmitry Gutov , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 17 22:04:50 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRQeI-0005Jt-Jl for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 22:04:50 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42898 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRPdh-0007om-FD for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 15:00:09 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46230) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZROJJ-0001ln-HH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 13:35:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZROJC-0005ed-M6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 13:35:01 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:41003) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZROJC-0005eE-CO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 13:34:54 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 14977 invoked by uid 3782); 17 Aug 2015 17:34:53 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p548A5EAE.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.138.94.174]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 19:34:52 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 3945 invoked by uid 1000); 17 Aug 2015 17:35:51 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <55D21191.8070202@cs.ucla.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 9.x X-Received-From: 193.149.48.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:188856 Archived-At: Hello, Paul. On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 09:53:37AM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote: > Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > The main change here is that from now on, particularly if so-called > > Electric Quote mode [*] is used, we're going to end up with a chaotic > > mix of ascii quotes and curly quotes in our source code. > Although I also would prefer a simpler approach (one that consistently uses > curved quotes), you've objected to that, necessitating a "chaotic" compromise. > > The fact that one "needs" such flaccid workarounds like EQM and the > > folding of quote characters with quote characters in (some of) the > > searching code should be taken as a hint just to stop and think > > hard. > For years Emacs has had significant problems in editing and searching and > generating non-ASCII text. Just to be entirely clear, I've got nothing against "non-ASCII" text. I've been typing and editing text with characters like £, ä, ß, Ü for decades, and would not use a program which prevented me from doing so. What I object to is _non-working_ characters - characters which appear on nobody's keyboard (see Bastien's question about typing curly quotes) and are problematic to display (See Eli's recent post, for example). I would object equally if you were, say, to insist that all symbol names had to be written in Greek characters, and you converted all our source files overnight to this convention. With all due respect to our friends who grok Greek. > Making Emacs better in this area will inevitably have teething > problems, and we'll inevitably come up with worse solutions before > coming up with better ones. Imposing non-working characters on Emacs hackers has no connection with problems users may have with non-ascii (working-)characters. They're two distinct themes. > But we shouldn't just do nothing: these are real problems that need to > be addressed. The two problems are separate. I'm not aware of the problems with non-ascii working-characters, probably because I use only Latin based scripts. If there are problems there, let them be solved! But I dispute that using ` and ' as quoting marks, in contexts used by hackers, is a problem. If it is, it is less of a problem than those caused by having non-working chracters throughout our sources. > Insisting that Emacs developers live and work in an ASCII ghetto has contributed > to these problems, as it has led us to discount the importance of non-ASCII > editing in the real world. (I've been guilty of this as the next guy, by the > way -- I'm not trying to cast aspersions on anybody in particular.) Again, nobody's insisting this - the topic is working characters vs. non-working characters, not ascii vs. the rest. > It'll be helpful to break out of these old mindsets, and if regularly > using a few non-ASCII characters in Emacs source will help us do that, > then that'll be a good thing. Again, nobody objects to the non-ascii characters - it's the non-working characters which are the problem. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).