From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs. Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 14:22:37 +0000 Message-ID: <20150615142237.GA3517@acm.fritz.box> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1434378171 23062 80.91.229.3 (15 Jun 2015 14:22:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 14:22:51 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jun 15 16:22:37 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 1Z4VHX-0005Db-LU for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:22:35 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:34496 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4VHX-0007RM-0v for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 10:22:35 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:35033) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4VH6-0007NX-6y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 10:22:09 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4VH3-0003lc-1Y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 10:22:08 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:37630) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4VH2-0003lF-OD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 10:22:04 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 17862 invoked by uid 3782); 15 Jun 2015 14:22:03 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p5B1466EB.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [91.20.102.235]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:22:02 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 4154 invoked by uid 1000); 15 Jun 2015 14:22:37 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 9.x X-Received-From: 193.149.48.3 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:187171 Archived-At: Hello, Emacs. First, some definitions. A @dfn{working character} is a character you use in everyday life - you can type it easily on your keyboard for self-insert-command, and it is displayed clearly and unambiguously on your screen. As Emacs developers, our working characters are basically ASCII, though each of us has his own characters (e.g. ä, ö, ü, ß for me) which count as "private" working characters. By contrast, a @dfn{display character}, or @dfn{non-working character} is a character which isn't a working character. To insert it into a buffer, you need to type its numeric code, or use (and remember) a C-x 8 ... binding, or some other clumsy workaround. It might or might not get properly displayed on your screen. Traditionally, Emacs sources have been written exclusively in working characters (with the essential exception of some characters which stand for themselves, such as some non-ASCII punctuation symbols used in `sentence-end'). This makes editing our source files optimally efficient. Recently, there has been a move, primarily by Paul, to introduce non-working characters (specifically, LEFT/RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARKs, or (less shoutily) "curly quotes") into our sources and *Help* buffers, not just marginally, but routinely into all our doc strings and error strings. Paul and I have had an extensive discussion on many of the issues this raises, in the thread for bug #20707. I am against these changes for several reasons: basically, they will make our sources more difficult to read and edit. I am not even sure of the motivation for the changes, though I think it is mainly that some people find the appearance of 0x60 and 0x27 as quote marks unaesthetic in some display environments. My main objection is there is no option to turn this new "feature" off. Some users are going to dislike these changes, possible dislike them a lot, but we are going to be forcing the curly quotes on them. This is going to create much dissatisfaction. For comparison, the fringe was a new feature in Emacs-21 which had no way of being disabled. Many users hated it, and were up in arms about it until this was fixed in Emacs-22. My view is that the curly quotes should not replace 0x60 and 0x27 in our sources, but that the option to display them as curly quotes should be made available to those that want it. 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. This is a Bad Thing. What do people think? -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).