Re: ?\_ patch

[Luc Teirlinck <teirllm@dms.auburn.edu>]

Richard and Handa seem to object against any change in Emacs for the
purpose.  I do not know whether or not that is due to the fact that
they might believe the required change to be more substantial than it
actually is (as can be seen from your patch).  Of course, in addition
to your patch some "secondary" changes to support the primary change
would be necessary, as can be seen from Ted's original patch.
However, such secondary (mostly documentation) changes are necessary
anyway if we are going to alert people to the dangers of ?\ in terms
of trailing whitespace removal and tabification, and propose
alternatives.

If you compare ?\s with ?\040 or ?\x20 (which I consider so closely
related that I consider them as one solution), then:

?\s:
Disadvantages:
1. Possible confusion with ?\s-
2. Requires change in Emacs.
Advantages:
1. Intuitive and concise.
2. Required change in Emacs is limited.

?\040 (or ?\x20)
Disadvantages:
1. Relies on ASCII ordering.
2. Not terribly intuitive.
Advantage:
No change in Emacs required.

I believe that the third suggested solution, (string-to-car " "),
presents some problems if one systematically would want to replace \?
everywhere with it, as I pointed out before.

The main objection against ?\s seems to be the change in Emacs.
In as far as ?\040 (or ?\x20) are concerned, Handa does not seem to
object against the reliance on ASCII and he knows that stuff a lot
better than I do.

So it all comes down to whether the gain in intuitiveness from \?s is
worth the (small) change in Emacs.  Of course, intuitiveness is a
relative concept.

Sincerely,

Luc.