Re: Emacs 26.1 release branch created

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Paul.

On Thu, Sep 21, 2017 at 22:19:53 -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > I have redefined
> > the value of nil in text-quoting-style to mean "no translation of
> > quotes" and introduced t to mean "prefer curved quotes", the meaning nil
> > previously had.

> Let's not change the semantics of text-quoting-style's values. Such a change is 
> not worth the compatibility hassle to users.

What compatibility hassle?  There is none.  The only hassle would come
if some user had written something like:

    (setq text-quoting-style nil)

in her .emacs.  Users don't set configuration variables to their
defaults.  Life is too short for that.

Or can you picture some other scenario which would cause hassle?

> John asked you to propose a patch to make text-quoting-style
> customizable, not to change its semantics.

Its semantics is entirely unchanged in every important respect.

> Whether text-quoting-style is customizable is orthogonal to what its
> values mean, and we shouldn't conflate the two issues.

There will be no other chance to correct the poor choice of symbols in
text-quoting-style.  It has to be done now, or it can never be done.

> >  quotes.  In contrast, a call using a format like @t{"Missing '%s'"}
> >  with only apostrophes typically generates a message like @t{"Missing
> >  ’foo’"} with only closing curved quotes, an unusual style in English.
> > +One way around this problem is to bind @code{text-quoting-style} to
> > +@code{nil} around the call to @code{error}; this causes the
> > +@acronym{ASCII} quote characters to be output unchanged.

> This doc patch, which occurs in multiple places, heads in the wrong direction. 
> "Missing `%s'" is the typical way to quote in Emacs source code. The current 
> documentation gently warns the programmer to avoid "Missing '%s'" as this is not 
> the usual Emacs style ....

See below.

> .... and typically won't look good anyway. If the warning is not clear
> enough we should clarify it, not encourage proliferation of atypical
> formats.

Again, see below.

But the main point here is to remind the reader that quotes can be
output as is by binding text-quoting-style, regardless of whether these
quotes are used in pairs to, er, quote something, or whether they need
to stand for themselves (as was the case in cc-engine.el some while
ago).  Perhaps you could suggest an improved wording which would give
the reader clear information about binding text-quoting-style, but
without appearing to encourage any non-standard quoting styles.

> > +** The variable `text-quoting-style' is now a customizable option.  It

> This (and other changes to NEWS) should use straight quotes, as that's the style 
> used in NEWS now.

A non-standard quoting style in NEWS?  ;-)  OK, I'll fix that NEWS item.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).