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: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 20:42:11 +0000 Message-ID: <20150818204211.GF2262@acm.fritz.box> References: <55D1043C.3030909@yandex.ru> <55D15899.2070105@cs.ucla.edu> <20150817121513.GA2634@acm.fritz.box> <55D21191.8070202@cs.ucla.edu> <20150817173551.GB2634@acm.fritz.box> <55D29EA6.2020009@cs.ucla.edu> <20150818103921.GA2262@acm.fritz.box> <55D36132.1020900@cs.ucla.edu> <20150818171715.GD2262@acm.fritz.box> <55D3869E.30302@cs.ucla.edu> 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 1439930517 16880 80.91.229.3 (18 Aug 2015 20:41:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 20:41:57 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Aug 18 22:41:48 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 1ZRnhb-0002c8-BD for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 22:41:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:59497 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRnha-0006ur-Rl for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:41:46 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:40274) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRnh9-0006L0-0z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:41:23 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRnh4-00088Q-MI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:41:18 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.muc.de ([193.149.48.3]:15642) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZRnh4-00086M-B9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:41:14 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 19332 invoked by uid 3782); 18 Aug 2015 20:41:12 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p548A50C2.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [84.138.80.194]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 18 Aug 2015 22:41:11 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 16190 invoked by uid 1000); 18 Aug 2015 20:42:11 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <55D3869E.30302@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:188907 Archived-At: Hello, Paul. On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 12:25:18PM -0700, Paul Eggert wrote: > Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > Well, as I said, I edit texts with non-ascii characters frequently, and > > don't experience any particular difficulty with them. Having to type in > > a decimal/hex code for a non-working character (or, even worse, having > > to look up an input method for it) just stops me in my tracks. An > > example is when I reply to Óscar, "Ó" being outside my working character > > set. > >> Emacs currently makes it harder to deal with non-ASCII and/or > >> non-working characters than it could. > > Could you give an example of this (pertaining, preferably, to non-ascii > > working characters)? > You gave an example in your previous paragraph, where you're stopped in your > tracks if you have to type "Ó" into Emacs. OK, but I can't really see the connection between this (and what Chad Brown was unhappy about) and the replacement in our source code of ` and ' by curlies. Nobody having to type "Ó" on a Spanish keyboard layout would have any trouble. > > Whatever problem that might be, the solution surely cannot be > > artificially to inflict it on ourselves. > There's nothing artificial about using a character to represent itself in > typical usage in a doc string or a diagnostic. What's artificial is requiring > users to laboriously type and read ASCII-only circumlocutions instead. There is nothing laborious about hitting key 41 or key 40. Anybody who finds this laborious will not be programming in lisp for very long. There is nothing indirect about using ` and ' to "stand for themselves", in quoting things. I've never heard of an Emacs hacker experiencing difficulty reading things quoted `like this'. On the contrary, holding down while typing on the numeric keypad, successively 2, 0, 1, 8 or 2, 0, 1, 9 is laborious indeed, even assuming that these codes have been retained in memory. For that is what a user with a normal keyboard layout, outside of Emacs, will be forced to do. As we know there are workarounds inside Emacs to help with this. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).