From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A simple solution to "Upcoming loss of usability ..." Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 07:54:48 -0700 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <558D67B8.2030507@cs.ucla.edu> References: <87egkzg7gb.fsf@gmail.com> <558C2E25.10303@cs.ucla.edu> <558C492E.9000705@yandex.ru> <558C7DE1.4060507@cs.ucla.edu> <87zj3mex3x.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1435332408 21442 80.91.229.3 (26 Jun 2015 15:26:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2015 15:26:48 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, Dmitry Gutov To: Oleh Krehel Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jun 26 17:26:39 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 1Z8VWX-0004an-U6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 17:26:38 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60752 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z8VWX-0007xE-Ar for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 11:26:37 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:59253) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z8V1q-0003gm-VN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 10:54:55 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z8V1m-00041J-Ta for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 10:54:54 -0400 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:56327) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z8V1m-00040K-Nw for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 10:54:50 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 28B6A160875; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 07:54:49 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id F6v_daqzw3Vc; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 07:54:48 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6D05316026C; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 07:54:48 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id vbRTEFYUQSyL; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 07:54:48 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (pool-100-32-155-148.lsanca.fios.verizon.net [100.32.155.148]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4592D160176; Fri, 26 Jun 2015 07:54:48 -0700 (PDT) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0 In-Reply-To: <87zj3mex3x.fsf@gmail.com> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 131.179.128.68 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:187568 Archived-At: Oleh Krehel wrote: > I hope most people will agree that having two notations for one thing is > bad for everyone: both novices and experts. Of course. The problem is that Emacs Lisp currently lacks notation and mechanism for doing the right thing with respect to user preference in quoting style. It will be a hassle to modify the old ASCII-only notation and implementation to address this problem while remaining ASCII-only. (I've started that job, but it's by no means done.) In contrast, it's quite simple to use curved quotes to denote quotes. There's no question that we'll continue to support the old ASCII-only style indefinitely, even though it's relatively clumsy and confusing. The only question is whether we'll also support a simpler style in which quotes normally stand for themselves, with the idea of moving to the simpler in the long run if it works out. That is, the question is whether the long-term gain is worth the extra short-term pain. (No matter what we do, we'll have some short-term pain; this is inevitable.) This is a judgment call, and the conservative approach is of course to add some more escape sequence complication to our ASCII-only approach, and/or to use gimmicks like font-lock mode to display characters other than what's actually in the buffer. But really, it's much simpler to use quotes to denote quotes, some of us prefer doing it the simpler way, and we should give the simpler alternative a try.