From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs. Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:57:06 -0700 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <557F3C22.4060909@cs.ucla.edu> References: <20150615142237.GA3517@acm.fritz.box> <87y4jkhqh5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1434401876 1020 80.91.229.3 (15 Jun 2015 20:57:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 20:57:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: acm@muc.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org, "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jun 15 22:57:47 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 1Z4bRy-0003cH-Uh for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 22:57:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36431 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4bRy-0004h8-IG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:57:46 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57147) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4bRS-0003mU-CZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:57:15 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4bRN-0008Ff-Dq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:57:14 -0400 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:38345) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z4bRN-0008FS-6O; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 16:57:09 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C31016069D; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:57:07 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id b13FZ2F4uKqN; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:57:07 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id E657016081B; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:57:06 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id KjkmtTNUFinv; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:57:06 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.9] (pool-100-32-155-148.lsanca.fios.verizon.net [100.32.155.148]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C49A816069D; Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:57:06 -0700 (PDT) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.7.0 In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 131.179.128.68 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:187201 Archived-At: Richard Stallman wrote: > I think we should aim to represent Lisp code as ASCII so it can be > edited without an input method. That makes sense for Lisp code itself, but not so much for strings and co= mments=20 that Lisp code contains. Years ago we started putting non-ASCII characte= rs into=20 Lisp strings and comments, and this has worked well. Going back and impo= sing an=20 ASCII goal or requirement now would would be a maintenance pain for littl= e=20 benefit. For example, it would be much harder to read and change this=20 ASCII-only Lisp code: (string-match "[^a-zA-Z\u03B1-\u03C9\u0391-\u03A90-9']" name) than to read and change what's in calc-explain-units-rec now: (string-match "[^a-zA-Z=CE=B1-=CF=89=CE=91-=CE=A90-9']" name) Of course the fact that non-ASCII characters work in Lisp strings does no= t mean=20 that we should necessarily change our source-code strings. My point here= is=20 only that the goal of ASCII-only Lisp source files is now often more trou= ble=20 than it's worth, and it should not be a determining factor when consideri= ng what=20 source-code strings should look like.