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: Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs. Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 09:02:25 +0000 Message-ID: <20150619090225.GA2743@acm.fritz.box> References: <557F3C22.4060909@cs.ucla.edu> <5580D356.4050708@cs.ucla.edu> <87si9qonxb.fsf@gnu.org> <5581C29E.1030101@yandex.ru> <87r3p9fxm2.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <87k2v0fiji.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1434704549 28618 80.91.229.3 (19 Jun 2015 09:02:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 09:02:29 +0000 (UTC) Cc: eggert@cs.ucla.edu, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jun 19 11:02:16 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 1Z5sBg-0008GV-IX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 19 Jun 2015 11:02:12 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56986 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z5sBe-0004vM-7h for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 19 Jun 2015 05:02:10 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:47975) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z5sBQ-0004uY-So for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Jun 2015 05:01:58 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z5sBM-0005Jj-Jt for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Jun 2015 05:01:56 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:23373) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z5sBM-0005IZ-AY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Jun 2015 05:01:52 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 8982 invoked by uid 3782); 19 Jun 2015 09:01:50 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p548A4BC4.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.138.75.196]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Fri, 19 Jun 2015 11:01:48 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 3105 invoked by uid 1000); 19 Jun 2015 09:02:25 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87k2v0fiji.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> 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:187309 Archived-At: Hello, Stephen. On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 01:06:57PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: > Richard Stallman writes: > > Your arguments are heated but not coherent. > You might try to refute them, rather than descending to mere name- > calling. Especially in a post where you immediately accuse someone > else of name-calling: > > Denigrating a significant class of users with the term "lobby" does > > not make them less important or less worthy of respect. > No, the term "lobby" does not make anybody worthy of less respect. Perhaps not, as such, but the phrase you used "... risk the wrath of the ASCII-capped lobby?" sounds anything but respectful. [ .... ] > And I've already granted that the costs to those who *can* live with > just ASCII, and *don't* need input methods yet, matter. I think > they're low enough to be worth paying, just as you think the sacrifice > of Japanese OCR is a cost that *I* should pay. Such conflicts can't > be waved away, and each side will lobby for its own interest. That's a red herring which has nothing to do with the current argument about curly quotes. The inconvenience of typing curly quotes is just as much an inconvenience to those who use non-English keyboard layouts. I would imagine (correct me if I'm wrong) you use distinct keyboard layouts for writing in English and Japanese. I imagine also that there's no key on the Japanese layout either for either of the curly single quotes. > > The situation is simple: using curly quotes in doc strings would be > > a substantial inconvenience for many users _for no practical > > benefit_. > And now you reveal *your* prejudice. That's no help. Paul claims > practical benefit; I agree -- and even Stefan seems to see at least a > possibility of practical benefit. Richard meant what he wrote here. Any benefits there may be are not _practical_ ones. The curly quotes are a pain to type. There are no practical benefits - nothing is made easier. The putative benefits are vague, aesthetic, about conforming with other people's expectations, etc. > But both sides are just speculating about what most users will feel. > For reasons I've explained elsewhere, I believe only an experiment can > help determine more accurately what the mass of users will think. The current changes do not seem to have been made in the spirit of an experiment. Some of the changes (those to the elisp page "Documentation Tips", for example, which assert that the standard quoting method is already an "older convention") go well beyond the scope of experimentation. In a true experiment, comment and objections would be actively encouraged at an early stage. I don't think this has happened wrt these curly quote changes. The problem about such "experiments" which are not explicitly announced is that people don't really notice them until it's "too late" to revert them. We were sleepwalking into accepting these curly quotes. This was not good. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).