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: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 15:48:57 +0000 Message-ID: <20150818154857.GC2262@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> <20150817173551.GB2634@acm.fritz.box> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1439912922 16956 80.91.229.3 (18 Aug 2015 15:48:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 15:48:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Paul Eggert , Dmitry Gutov , Emacs developers To: Yuri Khan Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Aug 18 17:48:24 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 1ZRj7f-00072o-QR for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 17:48:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57991 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRj7f-0001D7-2I for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:48:23 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44616) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRj7O-0001BD-75 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:48:07 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRj7K-0003FL-0y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:48:06 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:46112) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRj7J-0003EZ-CX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:48:01 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 53783 invoked by uid 3782); 18 Aug 2015 15:47:59 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p548A50C2.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.138.80.194]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 17:47:58 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 15140 invoked by uid 1000); 18 Aug 2015 15:48:57 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: 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:188889 Archived-At: Hello, Yuri. On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 09:09:51PM +0600, Yuri Khan wrote: > On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 11:35 PM, Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > 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). > It’s these two problems which need fixed. > We need keyboards (or input methods) which offer a convenient way to > enter typographically correct quotes and dashes and other essential > punctuation, because otherwise people fall back to their > easier-to-enter ASCII substitutes. There are already input methods for curly quotes (C-x 8 [ and C-x 8 ], I believe), but whether these will ever count as "convenient", I somehow doubt. Even typing [ and ] on a German keyboard layout (just as an example) is somewhat less than convenient. One solution is to enhance our own personal keyboard layouts, but that isn't a solution for our users. Nothing practical we can come up with is going to be as easy as just hitting key number 41 and key number 40. > We need terminals which are capable of displaying the whole repertoire > of Unicode, because otherwise we have to make a choice of the subset > we’d like to be able to see. Such terminals probably exist. However, they're not what "everybody" is using. The Linux virtual terminal, which I use, is currently limited to 256 distinct glyphs. I've had a look at the code, with a view to enhancing it, but it is not well maintained and easily adaptible code. Displaying the curly quotes in it is not unproblematic. Yesterday, Eli Z. reported a problem on an MS-Windows terminal which couldn't display these characters at all. One of the outstanding features of Emacs is that it will run equally well in "any" environment. This property is well worth preserving. > Making these two long-standing problems more visible is a good thing. Visible to whom? We definitely don't want to make them visible to our users. That will just make them annoyed and resentful. > (As far as I am concerned, both are solved problems already. It’s just > that the solutions are not mainstream enough.) I'd be interested in hearing a bit more about what you see as the solutions. Usually, you don't get something for nothing, and I'd bet that these solutions come with their own disadvantages, compared with what "everybody" is currently using. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).