Re: On language-dependent defaults for character-folding

["Óscar Fuentes" <ofv@wanadoo.es>]

Artur Malabarba <bruce.connor.am@gmail.com> writes:

> On 9 February 2016 at 18:21, Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> wrote:
>>> I don't know if it's possible to figure out the language of the user's
>>> keyboard layout. But the point is that we should care about the
>>> language that the user can type in,
>>
>> Figuring out this (and acting upon that knowledge) looks like a quite
>> complex task to me. In practice, letting the user tell Emacs about how
>> the char folding should happen is more reasonable.
>
> 1. Take the set of all characters in the language that the user types in;
> 2. Don't fold these characters.

Today I read your blog post about this feature:

http://endlessparentheses.com/new-in-emacs-25-1-easily-search-non-ascii-characters.html

where you say

"As any Brazilian, I am a daily user of diacritical marks (ó, ã, ê, and
the likes), and even though my keyboard can type these characters, I
still enjoy the simplicity of not having to."

And now I'm utterly confused. Your example is about using the feature
within your language, which you admit you have no problem with writing,
and now you talk about not folding the characters of the user's
language?

When at first I looked at the feature I thought that it was precisely
about what you mention on the blog entry and deemed it as something I
would use for the same reasons you mention on your example, until I
noticed the issue with n/ñ, when I was told that the feature was about
something else.

> That's all the complexity. If we have a database of characters in a
> language, this could even be done automatically. If we don't have such
> a database, then all we need is some quick input from a user of that
> language (this doesn't need to happen all at once, there's no rush).
>
>> I hope you all realize that the users who can benefit from this feature
>> are those who are ill-equiped to search for certain characters,
>
> I could be wrong, but I think you just defined all users. In the
> Unicode standard used by Emacs, there are 5721 characters with a
> “decomposition” property. Is there a user who is well-equiped to type
> all of those characters?

(And how many of those 5721 characters can be matched from a latin
letter?)

How typical for an Emacs user is to have to *search* (not write) for a
composed character that he can not type with his input setup? Sure,
people like Eli may have to do that quite often, because he has an
heterogeneous cultural background and also works on tasks related to
internationalization, but it is reasonable to assume that most users
will not need the feature often, if at all.

From my POV, if you see the feature as an aid for searching composed
characters by people without the adequate input method, there is no
problem at all. Just make it optional, perhaps toggable while inside
Isearch. This way the people who need it can use it, and Isearch will
not break for the rest.

[snip]