Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs.

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Tassilo.

On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 07:52:27PM +0200, Tassilo Horn wrote:
> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> >>> Good point.  Instead they use some kind of escaping convention so as
> >>> to avoid ambiguity.  We could try that.
> >> Could you maybe retract your support for using curlies in Elisp
> >> source code, then?

> > I don't have a strong opinion on the markup used in the source code,
> > as long as we resolve the currently existing ambiguity (and as long as
> > we can render the result with symmetric quotes).

> After this discussion, I'm now pretty much indifferent on these changes
> and if they should apply to display only or also to actual source code.
> But if the main problem with `foo' is its ambiguity, and ‘foo’ is still
> ambiguous (but less so), why not use something which is even less
> ambiguous?

Because it might not be typeable, and it might not be displayable.

> For example, I've seen uses of ⸢foo⸥ for marking up source code
> snippets.  That seems pretty unambiguous (although you can never be
> sure), ....

Whatever those quoting characters might be, they display on my terminal
as inverted question marks.  I haven't a clue what they might be, and it
would be a lot of work to find out.

> .... and as long you can type it easily and display it however suits
> you best, it's as good as anything else.

I agree.  That pretty much means ASCII.

> Bye,
> Tassilo

> BTW: On a related note: I don't get why *Help* buffers display quotes at
> all when they are already displayed with a face that makes them
> distinguishable from "normal" text and are clickable.

Help buffers traditionally display verbatim the text from the source
file (with the exception of explicit directives such as to display
bindings).  The face might not always be distinguishable from normal
text (e.g. font-lock might be disabled).  Anyhow, displaying the quotes
doesn't do any harm.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).