Re: Improving aesthetics & readability of backquote

["Paul W. Rankin" <hello@paulwrankin.com>]

On Tue, May 21 2019, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Backquote is a well-known construct, a de-facto standard since 
> over 40
> years ago.  For a while, backquote in Emacs Lisp was 
> incompatible with
> the standard, because I was trying to keep the code small.  But 
> in the
> 90s we changed Emacs Lisp to fit the standard.
>
> To change it is unthinkable.

I'm not suggesting to change it, in the sense I take that you mean 
as unthinkable, i.e. that change means doing away with the 
existing implementation. I'm only suggesting to give people 
(particularly those new to Emacs) the freedom to choose a more 
literal syntax that fits with the aesthetics of the surrounding 
code.

This is not dissimilar to the aforementioned rx library. Like the 
backquote construct, regular expression is an efficient but 
cryptic syntax, and rx gives people the freedom to choose a more 
literal syntax (which also fits with the aesthetics of the 
surrounding code) if they find the real syntax too cryptic and 
scary. They can use it like training wheels before switching to 
the real syntax (which was my introduction to regular 
expressions). This is all I'm suggesting -- free software giving 
people freedom, rather than adhering to the preferences of someone 
40 years ago.

Given that at least annually there's a huge thread on the mailing 
list or elsewhere about how Emacs is fading into irrelevance (!) 
and the dire need to attract more users (!), I think it's 
worthwhile really trying to look at things from the perspective of 
new users -- backquote may well be a 40-year-old standard, but 
before learning Emacs Lisp, I'd never heard of it, and I assume 
most people are the same.

-- 
https://www.paulwrankin.com