+1 for what Alan has to say.
+1 for keeping ` and ' for greppability as Oleh mentioned
+1 to what Drew said; seeing commits related to curly braces is not very
exciting


--
Kaushal Modi

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 11:23 AM, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:

> > As far as I am aware, there has been no poll to gather and analyse
> > the views of Emacs developers on these changes, much less one for
> > Emacs users.
>
> Of course not.  When was the last time you saw such a poll? ;-)
>
> > This is a Bad Thing.
>
> Yes.
>
> > What do people think?
>
> I've already made my position clear about this in the bug list.
> But I'll state it one more time.
>
> `...' is a very *good* way to set off inline symbols and other
> code phrases from surrounding non-code text.  Those who think
> it is somehow just an odd and imperfect, old-fashioned form of
> *quoting* are sadly mistaken.  That is not what it is about.
>
> '...' is used in ordinary English text, along with "...", for
> normal quotation.  As a text editor (among other things), Emacs
> should not interfere with this usage or make it difficult for
> users or programs to parse it and manipulate it, by piling on
> an alternative interpretation.  (Occam oblige.)
>
> What is needed in any doc about software is a way to clearly
> set off inline code phrases from surrounding, non-code text.
> This demarking constitutes metadata that is different from
> ordinary-text quoting.
>
> When structured doc or markup is used, this is typically
> accomplished using metadata that is provided by wrapping the
> code phrases in XML (or similar) elements/markup:
> <code>...</code>.
>
> In Emacs, we want, if possible, a simple mechanism that lets
> the text that contains the metadata (the "markup" text) to also
> act as the text that the user interacts with directly - search
> etc., but without the distraction of interacting with obvious
> markup (<code> etc.).
>
> `...' is simply an ingenious abbreviation for what is usually
> handled more verbosely using constructs such as <code>...</code>.
>
> As Alan points out, we want the metadata for this to be easy
> and quick to type, and not to interfere with either appearance
> or handling by program (including, but not limited to, Lisp).
>
> For all Emacs purposes I am aware of `...' is a very *good*
> invention.  It is a reasonable compromise (yes, like anything
> else, it is not unambiguous in all contexts).  And it has
> proven its worth in Emacs for 3 decades.
>
> That one person (plus our dear leader, apparently) thinks
> `...' is too "ugly" or too 1980s for his own use should not
> be a reason for Emacs to continue down the rabbit hole it
> has apparently been overzealously pushed into.
>
> The argument that ` and ' used to look OK back in the 80s,
> but fonts have changed so they are no longer symmetric,
> really misses the point.
>
> A delimiting pair of chars that is not confused with other
> uses ([], (), {}, <>, '', "",...) is what is needed, and
> `...' fits the bill well.  (Some other contexts use `` or '',
> but like "", these have an obvious disadvantage.  Still, even
> they would be preferable to '...'.)
>
> This change, whether implemented (a) only for rendering
> (appearance) or (b) at the base - actually using '...' in
> the underlying text, is altogether misguided, IMHO.
>
> Whether those originally responsible for `...' were aware of
> all of its advantages as a means of setting off inline code,
> I don't know.  But I thank them for it.  I hope that Emacs
> will eventually come to its senses about this and appreciate
> what a great gift `...' really is.
>
> Instead of being ashamed of `...' as a black sheep, the Emacs
> family should embrace it and be proud.  Especially, it should
> understand how truly useful it is.  '...' for inline code is
> a misguided, ugly hack, and in the long run not very workable.
>
> Emacs still has important and exciting things to work on and
> invent.  The '...' crusade is not one of them, IMHO.
>
>