Re: quotation marks [was Re: TUTORIAL.de updated]

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Paul.

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 03:08:26PM -0800, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 01/19/12 09:22, Drew Adams wrote:
> > `...' is an Emacs doc & UI convention, not simply a "coding standard".

> For user interfaces it would be better if Emacs quoted
> ?like this? or ?like this? (i.e., using directed
> quote marks) in the typical case where these quote marks
> are supported.

Reading your mail across an SSH link with my ISP, I see these quote
marks as an inverted "?".  The same in mutt, where I am currently
typing, the same when I load it into Emacs.

> Quoting `like this' is no longer appropriate, since modern displays
> typically don't render ` and ' symmetrically, and it confuses new
> users when Emacs gives unusual interpretations to ` and '.

I think if ` and ' confuse new users, they perhaps should direct their
modest talents to a less demanding editor.  ;-)  Does anybody really
have trouble with a new style of quoting marks, assuming that they can
actually see them?  I never had trouble with, for example, « and »
(apologies if anybody can't see these.  They're double angle bracket
quote marks.)

I run Emacs on a Linux tty.  It's always been a requirement of Emacs
that it run OK in this environment.  

> One way to address this would be to prefer directed
> quote marks within the Emacs source code; the surrounding
> technology should recognize these quotes and do the right
> thing when displaying diagnostics on ASCII-only platforms.

What about displaying Elisp source code on ASCII-only platforms?

> Use of ` for Lisp backquotes, shell backquotes, etc., would
> be undisturbed, of course.  The only change would be for
> when we're quoting something in English text.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).