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: [Emacs-diffs] master 9ce1d38: Use curved quotes in core elisp diagnostics Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 12:15:13 +0000 Message-ID: <20150817121513.GA2634@acm.fritz.box> References: <20150816160149.9416.80132@vcs.savannah.gnu.org> <55D1043C.3030909@yandex.ru> <55D15899.2070105@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1439813691 11769 80.91.229.3 (17 Aug 2015 12:14:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 12:14:51 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, Dmitry Gutov To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 17 14:14:42 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 1ZRJJJ-0000PM-Ee for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:14:41 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55305 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRJJD-0005Wt-PA for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 08:14:35 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38688) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRJJ0-0005WM-2P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 08:14:23 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRJIw-0005w9-SZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 08:14:22 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:63975) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRJIw-0005vy-J8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 08:14:18 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 31344 invoked by uid 3782); 17 Aug 2015 12:14:16 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p548A5EAE.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.138.94.174]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:14:15 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 2802 invoked by uid 1000); 17 Aug 2015 12:15:14 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <55D15899.2070105@cs.ucla.edu> 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:188838 Archived-At: Hello, Paul. On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 08:44:25PM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote: > Dmitry Gutov wrote: > > Doesn't (format "Expand `%s'? " string) use the "preferred quoting style"? > No, as that would break usages such as (format "\\`%s\\'" (car e)). This sort > of thing is reasonably common, so it'd be a compatibility problem to change > ‘format’ to replace accent-grave. > Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > This user's preference is to be able to type quote marks in Emacs source > > files directly without mincing workarounds, and to be able to search for > > them likewise. > You can continue to type quote marks as before, and Emacs will behave as it > always has. This may be true, but is completely irrelevant to the points I am making. > The only change here is if that if you want quotes in diagnostics to > come out in the user's preferred style, a "mincing workaround" of some > sort is needed. The main change here is that from now on, particularly if so-called Electric Quote mode [*] is used, we're going to end up with a chaotic mix of ascii quotes and curly quotes in our source code. So are users in their source code. [*] "Electric Quote Mode" isn't an electric mode at all (see definition in electric.el) - it'a a translation mode, and would, perhaps, be less confusing if renamed "Translate Quote Mode". These source files, stuffed full of non-working characters, are more difficult to work with, whether with less, or with grep, or whatever, and even inside of Emacs. > By the way, it's easy to search for quote marks in either style: just type C-s ` > or C-s '. And it's easy to type curved quote marks by using Electric Quote > mode. Electric Quote Mode is a global mode. It desperately needs to be buffer local. As it is, if EQM is enabled, non-working characters are going to be accidentally inserted into buffers where they do not belong. > These are both new features. If you don't want to use these new > features, that's fine too. I don't want to be lumbered with editing source files with non-working characters. Paul, these changes of yours are simply the Wrong Thing. The fact that one "needs" such flaccid workarounds like EQM and the folding of quote characters with quote characters in (some of) the searching code should be taken as a hint just to stop and think hard. I predict that there will be an open-ended series of bugs following from this, little things that just don't quite work anymore, and their fixing will be difficult and introduce yet more complexity and more little things that don't quite work. Emacs is steadily getting more complicated, and these changes are gratuitous complexity. I would say that Emacs's biggest danger at the moment is disappearing up its own complexity. We should be resisting this process, not accelerating it. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).