From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
To: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
Cc: acm@muc.de, emacs-devel@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org,
npostavs@users.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: Why "symbol's value" error about a list?
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2018 06:13:13 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <83shae7o2u.fsf@gnu.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <6608d822-4e12-4f17-8a67-4a0d72de538c@default> (message from Drew Adams on Mon, 5 Feb 2018 13:46:38 -0800 (PST))
> Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2018 13:46:38 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, npostavs@users.sourceforge.net,
> emacs-devel@gnu.org
>
> > The error message given out is:
> > Symbol's value as variable is void: ’bar
>
> That was the old, and legitimate, error message, yes. It
> accurately describes what is really going on (as you describe
> well, below).
>
> Now the message is instead (invalid-read-syntax "strange quote"
> "’"). Is that better?
I think it's somewhat better, because it talks about "strange quote",
which is a hint for the user about the actual problem.
> I suggested that the variable name be enclosed in `...'. That
> would make the original message clearer, I think:
>
> Symbol's value as variable is void: `’bar'
That might make things even more confusing, because the text actually
displayed will be this:
Symbol’s value as variable is void: ‘’bar’
which loses all hints of what is being quoted here.
> > This is a result of the change in `message', silently to convert ' to a
> > curly quote, by default. Some of us were unhappy at this change and
> > protested against it.
>
> Count me as one of those "some of us". Echoing Lisp code
> should do just that - no fiddling to "prettify" apostrophe to
> curly quote etc.
That ship has sailed two Emacs releases ago. We are trying to fix the
fallout.
And strange quotes is only one situation where confusingly similar
characters can be presented in error messages, making it hard for
users to spot the real problem. We are trying to find ways of making
such "typos" more evident in error messages.
> The error is using a symbol as a variable, when it is not
> defined as a variable. Which is exactly what the original
> error message said.
>
> That's the LISP error. Is there a _user error_ here?
> Yes, it's the mistake of copying and pasting what was
> printed in *Messages*.
>
> That user mistake is excusable. And we would want to
> inform the user about it, if we can't prevent it. But
> changing Lisp read syntax to guess what might be the
> most helpful thing to tell a user here is NOT the solution.
The issue is what _would_ be a helpful message in these cases. You
are just saying what should _not_ be done (repeatedly), but that
doesn't advance us towards the solution.
> Should this Lisp syntax change be reverted? That's the
> question being discussed here.
No, that's only part of the question. The other, no less important
part is if we revert that change, how to make the confusing error
message less so and more helpful in understanding the user error.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-02-06 4:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 98+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-02-02 22:24 Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27? Noam Postavsky
2018-02-02 22:52 ` Paul Eggert
2018-02-03 0:00 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-03 0:09 ` Paul Eggert
2018-02-03 0:39 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-03 8:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-03 16:16 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-03 17:05 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-04 1:16 ` Michael Heerdegen
2018-02-04 1:25 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2018-02-04 2:05 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-04 2:06 ` Michael Heerdegen
2018-02-04 10:34 ` Alan Third
2018-02-04 15:36 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2018-02-04 17:37 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-04 21:31 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-02-04 11:15 ` Alan Mackenzie
2018-02-04 15:54 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-04 14:47 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-02-04 1:55 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-04 2:10 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-02-05 1:06 ` Why "symbol's value" error about a list? Richard Stallman
2018-02-05 20:35 ` Alan Mackenzie
2018-02-05 21:46 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-06 4:13 ` Eli Zaretskii [this message]
2018-02-06 7:32 ` Tim Cross
2018-02-06 7:40 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-06 15:45 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-06 15:45 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-06 19:17 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-06 14:51 ` Richard Stallman
2018-02-06 11:27 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-02-06 14:53 ` Richard Stallman
2018-02-06 18:59 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-07 2:40 ` Richard Stallman
2018-02-07 3:42 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-06 18:52 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-05 1:06 ` Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27? Richard Stallman
2018-02-03 18:13 ` Aaron Ecay
2018-02-04 2:05 ` Drew Adams
2018-02-04 4:51 ` Paul Eggert
2018-02-04 9:47 ` Andreas Schwab
2018-02-04 15:04 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-02-04 17:33 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-04 19:36 ` Paul Eggert
2018-02-04 19:55 ` Philipp Stephani
2018-02-04 20:10 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-04 20:36 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-02-04 20:48 ` Paul Eggert
2018-02-04 20:59 ` Clément Pit-Claudel
2018-10-05 0:03 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-10-05 1:01 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-05 8:43 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-05 23:02 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-06 0:20 ` Drew Adams
2018-10-06 9:14 ` Alan Mackenzie
2018-10-06 14:34 ` Stefan Monnier
2018-10-06 14:57 ` Drew Adams
2018-10-06 15:42 ` Garreau, Alexandre
2018-10-06 16:10 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-06 16:17 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-07 1:13 ` Drew Adams
2018-10-08 3:51 ` Richard Stallman
2018-10-06 10:11 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-06 15:51 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-06 16:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-06 18:03 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-06 18:29 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-06 19:18 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-06 19:30 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-06 19:32 ` Garreau, Alexandre
2018-10-06 11:22 ` Garreau, Alexandre
2018-10-06 11:50 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-06 12:10 ` Garreau, Alexandre
2018-10-06 14:00 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-24 22:25 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-10-06 13:15 ` Unicode security-issues workarounds elsewhere [Was: Re: Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27?] Garreau, Alexandre
2018-10-06 14:01 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-06 16:24 ` Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27? Paul Eggert
2018-10-06 16:40 ` Stefan Monnier
2018-10-09 14:43 ` Noam Postavsky
2018-10-09 15:30 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-09 16:13 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-09 17:07 ` Paul Eggert
2018-10-09 19:18 ` Andreas Schwab
2018-10-10 9:39 ` Aaron Ecay
2018-10-10 11:18 ` Garreau, Alexandre
2018-10-10 14:31 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-10 15:18 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-10 15:43 ` Drew Adams
2018-10-10 16:08 ` Yuri Khan
2018-10-15 20:30 ` Juri Linkov
2018-10-10 3:58 ` Richard Stallman
2018-10-10 3:57 ` Richard Stallman
2018-10-10 14:41 ` Eli Zaretskii
2018-10-11 5:01 ` Richard Stallman
2018-10-06 15:40 ` eval-last-sexp / C-x C-e, and punctuation like `?’' [Was: Re: Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27?)] Garreau, Alexandre
2018-10-16 12:48 ` Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27? Garreau, Alexandre
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